In Our Little Village Poem by John Chizoba Vincent

In our little village Nkporo,
We live in harmony and help each other.
We share among ourselves the golden rules
And nighbours remember their neighbours.
We play hide and seek at our leisure time
Creating kite and building houses with clay.


When the elders are around the corner,
We play calm and whisper little to each other
As they eat kolanuts and drink palm wine.
Boys must not look at girls eye to eye,
And boys must not talk to the girls
Because we were told it is bad
But never were we told why it is bad.

At night, we stay separately
Under the mango trees to listen
To the moonlight tales of 'Omalinze'
After, boys dance along with boys
Girls sing'kpakpangolo' along their paths.
They never told us why girls must
Be separated from the boys.

Until we go wild and nasty,
In our games we meet;
We feel the girls emotions and feelings.
We entangle, caress and watch them groan
And moan passionately in our arms.
We disobey the elders and fall in love.

We try to see what the elders were
Hiding from our today's eyes.
So we deep our fingers into where it ought not to go
Because the elders never told us why the boys
Must not be with the girls.

Boys meet girls behind the elders,
The pleasurable experince becomes sweeter.
We mingle and entangle with them for sometimes
Behind the village 'Iroko' trees and boys
Put girls in the family way because the elders
Never told us why the boys must not look at the
Pretty girls in the eyes.

(C) JCV
#village life# rememberance# missing childhood#