konye ori Poems

We are the Africans
We rose with the sun and fell with the rain,
Stood with the hills
And danced with the forest-
...

Once the color of the night,
graced in starry skies

The full moon left little to wonder
...

Raised by the bare bones of nature’s grace,
my home held hands with the feral forest,
where nature hid her gold.
...

Was hope here only when the Amazon queen Nzhinga
and Nehanda, the Mbuya, of Zimbabwe fought to shield us from slave ships?

Was pride gone after Yaa Asantewa addressed the chiefs
...

In the sky, the clouds gathered,
and earth exhaled.
And like a tree in the autumn winds my heart swayed.
I trembled at the darkness that fell
...

He had shared a bed with success,
Heaven-kissing hills bowed at his feet.
He had grown taller than height,
his head scraped the sky when he strode.
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A smile; rooted in the soul,
Curving around the heart like a vine
Sprouted in the face of a baby drunk with joy
And in those eyes in high spirits
...

Every night- was another winter night
And the artic glacier was my bed
It took for ever -for those nights to break into day.
...

I lay there on that rat-shredded raffia mat;
my thoughts running through the bush paths
to meet my dreams at the bottom of the Iroko tree.
...