“How did the poor keep falling into the tribunals?”

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— Pablo Neruda, The Judges

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I.                Renunciation

‍ ‍I was freed the day I stopped gathering evidence for Judgment Day.

‍ ‍If no Doomsday awaits,

‍ ‍what then becomes of our afflictions?

‍ ‍They asked for my story;

‍ ‍I heard the rumble of the seas, the stampede of hordes,

‍ ‍the rising cacophony of life devouring life—

‍ ‍surging toward me, drowning my plea.

‍ ‍Where two or three are gathered, there jungle gathers.

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II.              The Jungle

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‍ ‍Have you seen hippopotami and crocodiles,

‍ ‍      jaws wide as volcanic craters?

‍ ‍            Hyenas, wild dogs, gorging on flighted herds;

‍ ‍                  birds feeding on birds’ entrails,

‍ ‍                        how sharp your beaks?

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“I will eat you alive” is not a metaphor;

‍ ‍      metaphor is civilization’s veneer:

‍ ‍            a civet on carrion, gilded in red;

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Daybreak haunts the night.

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III.       Judges

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The Ox,

‍ ‍      mouth green with clover,

‍ ‍            indicts the Tiger’s wet chin.

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The Tiger,‍ ‍

      “red in tooth and claw,”

‍ ‍            shudders at the Python unhinging a jaw

‍ ‍                  to take the calf whole.

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Grazer,

‍ ‍      Predator,

‍ ‍            Devourer.

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They face one another,

‍ ‍      awaiting a verdict—

‍ ‍appetite.

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‍ ‍IV.       The Tribunal

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If there is no Judgment Day,

‍ who but the anointed may sit in judgment?

‍ Questioning itself keeps justice half-alive;

‍ plea of the powerless,

‍ fragile shield against despair’s claws;

‍A fever fed by its own fire.‍ ‍

A promise. A belief.

A desperate hope—vast, deferred, elusive.

‍The oldest dream we repeat to survive.

‍ ‍‍ ‍

Again, the gavel rises.

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Olabode Ibironke is a poet and scholar who teaches African and Diaspora literature at Rutgers University in New Jersey.