What is the theme of the poem “An African Elegy” by Ben Okri?
I’ve never read this poem before, so thank you for sharing it. It’s beautiful. I’ll take a stab at expressing the point of the poem. It seems to me that the speaker is saying that even though we may not understand the reason for suffering and death, we should be hopeful that this mystery, like many other of life’s mysteries, will one day be revealed to us; the only thing we can do now is appreciate life, with all its inherent mysteries. When describing this aspect of life in the penultimate stanza and the first two lines of the last stanze, he says “There is wonder here. / And there is surprise / In everything the unseen moves.” Ultimately, this poem seems to be an assertion in God’s overall plan for humankind, despite the fact that we may not fully understand that plan. Rather than fear that plan, the speaker believes that “Destiny is our friend” and that we should embrace it.
