INTRODUCTION
When at break of day at a riverside
I hear jungle drums telegraphing
the mystic rhythm, urgent, raw
like bleeding flesh, speaking of
primal youth and the beginning,
I see panther snarling about to leap
8 and the hunters crunched with spears poised;
And my blood ripples, turns torrent,
topple the years and at once I'm
in my mother's laps a suckling;
at once I'm walking simple
paths with no innovations,
rugged, fashioned with the naked
warmth of hurrying feet and groping hearts
16 in green leaves and wild flowers pulsing.
Then I hear a wailing piano
Solo speaking of complex ways
in tear-furrowed concerts
on far away lands
and new horizons with
coaxing diminuendo, counterpoint,
crescendo. But lost in the labyrinth of its complexities,
it ends in the middle
25 of a phrase at a dagger point.
And I lost in the morning mist
of an age at a riverside keep
wandering in the mystic rhythm
29 of jungle drums and the concerto.
Subject Matters
The subject matters are the remembrance of the youthful days and the complex nature of the future to come.
The poet recollected his youthful days (the primal youth and the beginning) through the quietness of the early morning river and the echoing forest while "at the riverside" (his land of youth). He further mentioned in stanza 2, the effect such remembrance gave his mem ory of sitting “in my mother’s lap a suckling”, “walking simple paths with no innovations”, and groping in green leaves with wild flowers in naked hurrying feet.
The complexity of the future to come according to the stanza 3 of the poem was with “a wailing piano” which symbolised a painful sound “solo speaking of complex ways” (the unknown future) and such painful sound brought a silent cry which the poem referred to as “in tear-furrowed concerto” which lost the poet with labyrinth of it's complexities”
Adulthood in human life stands between the past and the present which in many occasions bring out the feeling Gabriel Okara felt in the poem "Piano And Drum". Conclusively, any adult, in any given time, can find himself or herself in the shoes of Gabriel Okara which makes the subject matters of the poem to be very much significant.
Analysis
The poem is a post-colonial poem that focuses on the contrast between two cultures (African and western culture). The poet puts the culture side by side to emphasize the comparison between the two cultures.
The poem broadly talks about the experience that Africans had with colonialization and the aftermath of colonialization on the African continent. The poem is strongly built around symbolism and metaphor. The poet uses the "piano" to symbolize the western culture, and the drums to symbolize the African culture.
From the lines of the poem, you examine the poet's tone and mood. The mood of the poem is sober and at the end of the poem, it becomes more indignant angry. From the poem, we can detect that the poet prefers the African culture that is simple and free from complexities, unlike the western culture that is embedded in sophistication that makes the black man end in confusion.
From the poem, we can see that the poet is cut up between two cultures, and that is where the confusion set in. Looking at the colonial era, the western culture was forcefully infused into the African culture, that Africans themselves could not separate the western life from their true heritage. At the point where the African man can't separate the western life from his own culture because sometimes he remembers his own culture and wishes he can go back to what used to be, but at the same time he is caught up in the western culture. "And I lost in the morning mist of an age at a riverside keep, wandering in the mystic rhythm of jungle drums and concerto". The poem is basically about the cultural clash and post-African literature.
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