It was mid-February
Cultivations just began.
Our euphoria’s maximum.
Our energy?
A compendium of zeal
Our gods and ancestors
Spoke soothingly from
their abodes
We’re ready for a
bountiful year
Hoping the rains arrive
In due season to water
our seeds and freshen
our lands.
It’s mid-march.
Our excitement mounts.
We wake with rejoicing
as sounds of distant rumbles
cascade to our itching ears;
The skies above darken
As if shadowed by
the gods’ giant wings
“Our land’ will smile, our
seedlings’ will be freed
from earth’s hot-pots.
Our bounties are here…
Our gods and ancestors,
we thank you, all of it,
for answered prayers!”
we had yelled wildly…
But our joy was ephemeral.
For we stood all day
in troubled anticipation;
The skies above never let,
nor did the distant rumbles.
Billowing flashes navigated
from Yorla to Ebubu,
from Bodo to Korokoro;
Like puppets on display,
we stand for days expecting
Yet, the signs were no different!
Our hearts dropped
like airless sacks,
Our hilarity frosted
like old evening palm-wine,
Our expectations melted into
a thousand dismal rivulets.
We’re left naked on blighted
floors cold and shivering,
Forced to demand of our
gods and ancestors reasons
for our present plights…
why the rains never came…
‘did we offend the gods?
Were our sacrifices sacrilegious?
If so, why weren’t we told?
yet we’re left to wallow in the
ecstasy of plethoric emptiness?
Our gods and ancestors,
should we questions these
visitations, will you be mad
with us?
Will you choose reasons
over reactions?’
We’re done with festivities.
It’s early November.
and nine of your children
Hang on ropes like common
criminals for asking;
Tell us: is it wrong to ask?
Tell us: who tells your children
about the dark skies,
about the rumblings
that weren’t harbingers
of hope and liberation?
Tell us before the rains
arrive to course your
children’s blood to pits
and pits of crude!
« return.