Flipped

What if the earth flipped upside down And we walk around with our arms Learning to do ordinary things with our feet Making sense of the new world with blood rushed heads As the trajectory of creativity is stalled And the meaning of humanity redefined

Our noses brought closer To the messes of our previous existence As we naturally stare upwards And crank our heads to look downwards To find handwear is the fashion of the moment And we never breathe down upon the subdued

Human brilliance is reinvented In the brilliant foot guitarist with his big toe Or new ways of digesting food And the business of toileting a challenge Finding our habitat unconducive Or sitting on one’s head uncomfortable

Our humanly features now foreign To our flipped world Eyelids shutting upwards Nostrils breathing inwards downwards While dirt still flowed downwards

What if our world flipped upside down And birds flew upside-down But the trees grew upwards With clouds on the surface And it rained upwards into seas in the sky Where sunshine is a hue of blue and green And we have to learn gravity all over again

What if the world in your mind Was a world of many worlds One inside the other, inside the other infinitely What if the expanse of your mind Was as vast as the universe And the universe was your mind

Andrew Okri

Dedicated to Keno Ogbo; thank you