And There Was Silence (For Eunice Mojisola Elisha Ola Wale) Poem by Babatunde Idowu Ebenezer

AND THERE WAS SILENCE

When the teary stars lit up the heavens,
To behold the face of the weeping moon,
Who has prevailed over the somber sun,
That refuses to shine even in daylight,
Then I too will come out of my mud hut,
To gaze at them all with my one eye,
And sing with them their melancholic song,
Accompany by the hooting of Kenge the owl,
And the screeching of Nuni and Maka the monkeys.
And in unison we shall sing your song oh Eunice,
We shall sing for you in our deafening silence.

Whose hands held the machete that cut you down
Like an unwanted stem of Odan tree?
Whose hands carried your lifeless head
And laid it on top of your holy book?
Whose hands did your blood spurt
Like a broken fountain to stain?
Who has the spots of your lifeless life
On their garments of cold bloodedness?
Who was there when you breathed your last Mojisola?

If you were to be a senator wife of an emperor,
Verbally abused in the chamber by a colleague,
They would hold protests on your behalf.
If your life was a petroleum subsidy,
Suddenly removed from existence,
They would march and sing to oppose it.
If your killers were to be opposition leaders,
Who ate billions of paper yams like paper goats,
They would clamp down on them
And imprison them even without court warrants.
If your death could bring down a sitting president,
They would march to bring back your soul.
If your death was a court judgement,
That allows the use of a particular dressing
In their holy and holy schools,
They would order their children to disobey orders,
And break school rules so as to prevent its happening.
But your death was what it was,
The death of a street evangelist,
And so they move on to important things.
And there was silence.

But we shall sing for you Eunice,
We who hear your voice and those of others,
Murdered for the word and the testimony,
Crying relentlessly to the Holy and true Sovereign
For justice and revenge to be done
On those who shed their blood but are still alive.
We shall sing in our heart breaking silence,
Of how you laid down your life for Him whom you so loved.
And so our songs echo beyond the mountains,
Carried across the oceans by the gloomy wind,
Of a silent cloudy July night.
Our songs of love, hatred, life and death.
Of Eunice Mojisola Elisha Olawale.