Ama Alma Okigbo

I start as a leaf
By the time they did not count years
By the time when famine struck
The yellow hot ball would always reward me but
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Sweeping by when the sky was ghost quiet
You could hear the crackling sails on the ship
And the burbling water against the ship
Yes, it is the wind
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Being treated like animals, like nothing
Wearing rags and flogged under the hot African sun
Locked in cages and treated brutally
When would all this be over?
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Little mysteries wrapped in boxes
Squares, circles, and even triangles
Sitting under a spooky tree
Ready to be devoured by our longing hands
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What hears but does not see
What cries but can't scream
Oh, a tortured life
It is about to begin
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As I walked down the street
I saw a girl whose hand was butchered
Sitting in the shadow of her mother, whose head was chopped off
Her eyes rolled down to my feet
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Christmas!
Christmas is full of laughter and cheers to be heard
To touch the souls as it spreads
But never hatred; as people dread
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Frustration is a combination of irritation and agitation.
It feels my body with indigestion.
The irritation and agitation are what human beings call frustration.
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The goddess of life and nature
The defender of humanity
The creator of the land
Tranbonia; we adore you
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An African life! What someone would hear but not see
When someone would cry but not scream
Oh, an African life
What have we become?
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As beads of sweat roll down their cheeks
As they farm under the hot sun
Some wearing rags, some walking barefoot
Bearing the famine that threatens them
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In a land where pride and greed spells wealth
Lay innocent bloodshed
The sound of the clash of the machete drums in my ear
I clench my fist in revenge
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In a casket of misery and tragedy
In a life that's being wasted; every second that goes by
In the depths of catastrophe
In a life where pain and misfortune are siblings
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We corrupt our kind day after day
We discriminate our kind weeks after weeks
We leave our kind to die month after month
We disgrace our country's name
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I was a dried-up seed, brittle as ever
Blown away from my mother
Weak and feeble I was
Trying to survive as a seed was hard
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If I had one wish
I wouldn't wish for riches or gold
I wouldn't wish for kingdom and courtyards
I would wish for Nigeria
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We are not who you think we are
We are people who serve our country well
We are people who help ourselves
We are people who never let our country down
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Waking up from bed from what I could hear
From the honking of cars whose sound deafens my ear
Walking down the road, one could die
From the bullets which pierce the sky
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