Monologue Of Solitude Poem by Tony Adah

I do not know anywhere
My world is closed,
Reserved for me and my village folks
My straw bed,
My food,
My spring water
Cascading from the rocky hills
Where ancient wisdom lives
Our farms, the yams, the wateryams
The cocoyams, the peanuts, the hills
And their senior brothers standing Tall, hemming me in in my world.

Know the world
It is time to learn
I am off to school,
Still in the same confines of
The hills and the mountains
Those tall structures that wore a
Diadem of the clouds
Those starters of rainfall
In my enclave.

Then I heard a bang like earthquake
Houses shook, our market and its wares
Running to the top of the
Frightened mountains
I look left
And I look right
Nothing in sight, war they said
My country didn't want to lose
Its tail
I begin now to know
Hausas, kanuris, fulanis, yorubas
All who fought to keep the tail
They now use to whip the people
Down here.

How terrible it is to have a country
Which very few own
Would it have been better
If I remained in my enclave
If that white stranger did not visit?