Iroke Ifa

Some Yoruba people believe every person is born with a particular destiny, and that destiny is known to the wise god Orunmila if not always to the people themselves. You see, people sometimes get lost from their destiny, forget their trajectory, go another way, get in trouble. When this happens they go see an iyanifa, a divining priestess, mother of secrets. In a ritual to summon Orunmila in order to relearn one's destiny, the iyanifa taps a carved pointed wand, Iroke Ifa, on a tray covered with seeds. The tapping communicates the need for Orunmila to speak and the seeds are cast, counted and arranged into a symbolic numerlogical system linked to Yoruba prophetic verses that, when recounted by the iyanifa, should remind the person of what he or she already knows. So, I saw one of these divining wands, an Iroke Ifa, in a museum. It was made of ivory and carved with a seated voluptuous woman, a bird, a snake. I read the explanation, and thought, hell, I could use one of those, a thing to summon Orunmila to come tell me my destiny in verse. I'd do it every day. Well, I don't have an Iroke Ifa or an iyanifa, but I used them in a poem.

Iroke Ifa

Easy to get lost from destiny --
Water pulls this way, wind that

Lover takes you down a shortcut
same place, strange place

easy to forget Amnesia
when she's kissing you

say someday I want --
someday I will be

easy. Ask Inyanifa
to ask Orunmila

what should be. Iroke Ifa
tap tapping

faith's ivory finger and
the mother of secrets

sound it out. Creation's
a calabash, a gourd in halves

a grinning god will tell you
it's all in there

you'll hear it
when you're trouble-humbled.