Requiem For A Tribe Poem by Oludipe Samuel

Mandela, you were no more
Than the lash on my skin –
The fiery hairs wild wild, wave-breaking
As the ocean’s teeth on the running rind

And we the melted salt, spurned
When the earth swells its purse
To seek the peril of your passion bold,
A lashing tongue piercing the century

Of alien rape, trodden flesh
Lost in the reach of memory
But oh it must rise,
This strain of grief, binding

The last sutures of life –
Your passing dares me, Mandela
Last-ditch guardian of that hope
On the vacant brows of my face

Grim pulses through your shiver wreathe us
Lavish charms, bound to an oath of purity
So now the eaves burn above your head…
I think of trees and stumps