African Woman Poem by Yakubu Mohammed

And my mother stood akimbo
Gazing at the blue river Ole'
With a balanced log of wood
On her locally plaited head
She sighed, she heaved;
The sun at the dusk revealling her
Afrikanness as she twisted her torso
Right, left with her local wrapper tied
A little below her shoulders
She walked home; complacently.

Thus my father swore,
My father, in youth and exhuberance,
A hoe on his left shoulder and
A cutlass on the right swore
Before the dusk, before the cool breeze
That whistles a scintillating perfume,
Before the excitingly singing birds,
Before the echoes of the forest,
Before Oghena Himself,
' this young maiden has hurt me,
She has touched my strength and
I swear, I swear I shall cross whatever
River, I shall climb whatever mountain
I shall trek thousand miles
To make her my living soul'.