The Santa Claus Departs

We never saw it coming but it came like the sound of the trumpet heralding the doomsday- that day, dark as the night bereft of moon and stars, that announced your departure. You were a priest that santa-claused without ceasing, brightening every cloudy sky you met with the sun. Though separated are we by the great river you've crossed ahead of us, we hope to meet you someday, not on our side side of the river in the world of wicked ones radiating rotten rays where Ahab robs Naboth of his vineyard; but on your side of the river in the world of saints united as a congregation without a segregation, filled with faces smiling, free of faces frowning. N.B. this poem is a tribute to late Father Barnabas Salawu known to have devoted his life to caring for the poor. His last priestly assignment was at Magongo,Kogi state, Nigeria before his death in 2011. R.I.P.