Black woman,
life has aggressively
torn you into tatters.
You now stand like a scarecrow:
tatters on moth-hollowed trellis.
Black woman,
you are the dying glow
of a once fierce flame.
You whose teeth in rusted days
held a thousand noon suns,
whose skin was the colour of ripening palmnut,
is this what you have become -
a poor artist's sketch?
Black woman,
for five, and ten kobo profits,
to trap the cynics' scorn in the teeth,
you would wake up at five,
sleep after midnight,
standing all day,
serving beer and meat
to grinning men
with lecherous eyes,
men who find succour
in the emptiness
of green bottles.
I was then too small to soothe
the pains of a lonely life,
too small to moisten the dryness of poverty,
too small to crack the kernels with you.
You satisfied your conscience
but it robbed your face of its cheer,
your heart of its song,
rubbed your head in dust,
and left your body a rag.
Even the legendary resilience
of your lineage has bowed out
in the face of this ravishing poverty.
But linger awhile:
in the life of a blink
the crescent grows into fullness.
I shall yet grow and kill your fears.
And in the cup of my hands
offer you songs and grains.
In the cup of my overflowing hands
the lavender fragrance of fulfilled dreams.
First published in Okike. Reprinted in Stars Die,
2004, Hybun Publications International, P. O. Box 833, Apapa,
Lagos, Nigeria. ISBN: 978-36950-6-1.
HGNL2000@yahoo.com
Hybun2000@yahoo.com
Top |
