Oya, Great Mother Poem by Birgitta Abimbola Heikka

From the Futa Jallon hills,
she leaves
for her long journey through many lands
Following a mysterious trail

She glides up north
At that Mohammedan city of learning
by philosophers and scholars, pausing
Knowledge to acknowledge

Her slender, stretched tail
shining like the sidewinder under
the Namib sun
A path peripatetic, she follows

As she changes course, swerving east
sliding just past the grand Sahel sand
but not before paying obeisance
to the rippling beauty

Then once again, she spins like the serpent
down south where she gives birth
to lakes and rivers before merging
with the great gulf

"Source of the white man's curse, "
She was once called
for she was always changing course
as seen fit to provide for her millions of children
on her mysterious journey along the way.