I Am African
I am an African,
Africa runs in my vein
Like an endless river.
Like an African, I eat.
I reason like an African.
I fall asleep under the auspices of the melodious flute
And rise to dance to the hailing voice of the gangan of
Ayangbami.
I am an African
And like an African
I gulp down my palm-wine
From the beautiful calabash.
Under the mango tree
When the sun has set
I vie for supremacy over the "Ayo-Opon"
I am African
Though twenty wives like
Ikubolaje my great grand father
I do not have,
Thirty children to till and sweep different farmlands
I do not imagine,
I thread with my agbada flapping in a pompous manner
I am an African.
My path has been carved
to dance to the beat of the foreigners long before I
journeyed down between her thighs from the house of
Olodumare.
The western ink and the lengthy feather that lie in front of
my lamp,
To African glorification I pledge to use.
I am an African
A man in my house
No equal of woman
That I'd provide shield for
Under the hostile gaze of the pricking sun and the biting
cold.
Copyright © Ijalana Afolabi | Year Posted 2015
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