Once Upon A Time | Gabriel Okara

About the Poet

        Gabriel Okara (1921 -) is a Nigerian poet. His widely anthologized poems reflect on the tribulations of nation-building and the traumas that befall the self. The Fisherman's Invocation (1978) is his most ambitious work, the collection shared a Common Wealth Poetry Prize.

About the Poem

        As we grown we tend to lose our innocence, our simple ways of behavior. Artificiality or affectation and hypocrisy creep into our behavior. The poet Gabriel Okara, therefore, asks his son to show him how to laugh and smile, which once upon a time he used to when he was a child like his son.

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time, son,

they used to laugh with their hearts

and laugh with their eyes;

but now they only laugh with their teeth,

while their ice-block-cold eyes

search behind my shadow.

There was a time indeed

they used to shake hands with their hearts;

but that's gone, son.

Now they shake hands without hearts;

while their left hands search

my empty pockets.

'Feel at home !' 'Come again';

they say, and when I come

again and feel

at home, once, twice,

there will be no thrice -

for then I find doors shut on me.

So I have learned many things, son.

I have learned to wear many faces

like dresses - homeface,

officeface, streetface, hostface,

cocktailface, with all their conforming smiles

like a fixed portrait smile.

And I have learned too,

to laugh with only my teeth

and shake hands without my heart.

I have also learned to say, 'Goodbye,

when I mean 'Good-riddance';

to say 'Glad to meet you'

without being glad, and to say 'It's been,

nice talking to you' after being bored.

But believe me, son,

I want to be what I used to be

when I was like you, I want

to unlearn all these muting things.

Most of all, I want to relearn

how to laugh, for my laugh in the mirror.

shows only my teeth like a snake's bare fangs.

So show me, son,

how to laugh; show me how

I used to laugh and smile

once upon a time when I was like you.