WOLE SOYINKA : Season

Season

Rust is ripeness, rust.

And the wilted corn-plume.

Pollen is mating-time when swallows

weave a dance.

Of feathered arrows

Thread corn-stalks in winged

Streaks of light. And we loved to hear

Spliced phrases of the wind, to hear

Rasps in the field, where corn-leaves

pierce like bamboo slivers.

Now, garnerers we,

Awaiting rust on tassels, draw

Long shadows from the dusk, wreathe

The thatch in wood-smoke. Laden stalks

Ride the germ’s decay-we await

The promise of the rust.

By: WOLE SOYINKA

Some possible meanings

I have not found a full explanation of the poem, so here are my thoughts.

I think the poem can be read on several levels. Soyinka was western-educated and moves with ease between Western and Yoruba culture.  His poetry has a lyricism about it which is well represented by this poem. Soyinka wrote a lot about death, dying and isolation and on the surface this is what the poem is about.

Let’s look at the surface meaning first.

In western philosophy ‘rust’ is used as a metaphor for decay but in this poem there is a feeling of anticipation. In the first part of the poem the ‘wilted corn-plume’ is referred to as ‘ripeness’ because it can also refer to a readiness for harvest. The ‘corn-plume’ is the tassle that hangs from the head of corn. When the colour turns from light green to a rusty colour it indicates that the corn is ripe to harvest. The cycle of corn production is referred to in the poem. The swallows help to pollinate the corn by spreading pollen from stalk to stalk. The stalks wave in the wind. Then there is the anticipation of the harvest to come when the harvesters will garner the corn stalks using scythes. But the seed, the germ, remains and the corn will rise up and come again.

A different level of meaning of the poem could be political. Soyinka was imprisoned in Nigeria in the 1960s. Much of his work is the search for freedom, redemption and ‘rising up’. There was a dreadful massacre in Nigeria in 1966. If you look at the poem with those eyes there is at the end the sense that ‘we will be cut down’ as the corn stalks were, but the germ of the corn remains and ‘we will arise again’. Thus the rust which signifies the ripeness of the corn to be cut, also gives the promise of resurrection through political independence.

A third level of meaning could be spiritual. Soyinka’s work is firmly rooted in his Yoruba heritage. Many of his poems are labelled ‘Orgunnian’ referring to the Yoruba supreme being ‘Orgun’, the god of iron and war. In this poem the implication of massacre by the cutting down of the corn stalks could be an Orgunnian reference. Orgun is both destructive and creative and in this sense we see both sides of him in the cutting down of the corn and the promise of the rust.

Suggested Books

• Death and the King’s Horseman (Norton Critical Editions)
• The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry: Fifth Edition (Penguin Classics)