Song Of A Widow. I

Why did you have to depart

 

The sweet aroma of my nose

Just a dots of years when we met

You are no more darling,

I'm now a wife to a hill of black soil. 

 

Stressful nostalgic moments, 

When we held our hands in support

As we adventured the cold streets of Nyahera

When we shaked fingers in plays

This stress gonna kill me soon.

 

I joined your land as a choice

Kano, the sanctuary of the gods

Where rice keeps birds

While rice and birds kept us

In this beautiful sanctuary

 

It was mutual

As your love was my love

Your malaria my pneumonia

Your handsome love was enough 

Ooh dear! Won't you come soon? 

 

But something disturbs alot, 

Now listen I tell you

Shape the ears like the rabbits

Attention as the blues in the battle

 

You left me in a tag of war

Where only the tougher wins, 

The piece you left me with

Was taken the very day you smelt a morgue. 

As the undertakers surrounded you

Their hearts swarmed on the little

You left for your children. 

 

Your brother AAA, a beast in a jungle

A domestic hyena that walks on two legs

Grabbed the little you left your wife

And children with,

Cocked the bitter towards your

Wife and children.

 

I also refused the hot life, 

He wanted to shoot in me,

He wanted to make me,

An altar for his sacrifices,

The church where he prays, 

Ooh the unbearable burden! 

 

Your mother chirped every morning

At my doorstep, 

The rare things she did when your

Two legs could stand.

All her words called me names;

The killer of his son

The backwash of her river

The poison of her waters.

 

Stand and give us a quick response

Of the brigadiers when the duty calls

Your house is on fire

The curtains are inrescued

The only three legged stool

And the springed bed

That you left us with, have caught fire.

 

My dear husband extinguish this fire

It's a pain unbearable, 

It's a disease I can't find it's treatment

Oh my love! Rise and rescue your waters

Your river can't flow uphill

The ways have been blocked

By the ever piling silts

From the branches of your mother river

 

Our land is far away from us

The hyenas and lions

With the big belts and bellies

Have widened up the distance

The fare is much on us

We can't reach it again.

 

An eighth acre you left us

Is out of our hands.

Guys in black paraded around it

Like a troop in their assembly. 

Saturdays and Sundays

It was under a bargain

Till its deal got done.

 

The sights beams on the little calf

That its sun rose when yours set

"It's almost"

The all time phrase of their tongue.

Its days are numbered

Its Saturday almost reaches

When the bosses with papers 

Come back home for their vacation.

 

Your kids nolonger attend the lessons

Their term melted suddenly

Like a subliming iodine

Exposed to a small heat.

Though their hands are dirt'

Their heads blow candles

But none has to keep them going. 

 

Your brothers and mothers,

A hole that swallows.

Their hands fear serpents

In their pockets, 

Because their stomach are red

And their grins are dark. 

 

Olu' The mater of my ovum

The sire of the so called bitter children

My remover from my fatherland

Come to the rescue of your sper'

The land is nolonger proper

For your only fruits of a long journey.

 

Dear Olu' give us an eye

Or come for us all

The battle is much tough

For a widow so lonely.

 

Even the tendrils lean on the oak

But in this forest the oaks are burning us.

Seek the permission from Kir'

The ancestors of our land

So that you rescue your kins

The wounded waters of his branch.