Northern Nigeria
These vast plains of steadfast savannahs
Haunt me joyfully with the silent hissing tune
Of the setting sun, smiling at the
Sashaying clouds of low skies, and ogling select woods.
The earth is brown here (snuff-brown, I insist),
And with the courage of humble humus soil
Into whose fecund wombs the fattest disciples of yam —
Each tuber a testimony to nutritious creation —are nursed.
Need I guess correctly the mating time of sorghum — in the rains
Or in droughts?
Millets keep decent trysts with their kind,
Aping the pullulation of scattered corn, tomatoes and cactus,
And peripatetic weeds, and all other refractory modules of tillage.
Anointing breeze is wafted by the league of seasons,
The illustration of grazing cattle, and singed
Hirsute peaks of knolls near totems hoisted by
Ancestral masters —on foot and on teething caravans.
The pasture, gold-trimmed, reaches the edge of the world,
And glitters with the power of mirage.
Within you, you belabour the point of nostalgia for mind’s
Aging peace fluttering in the distance, a faint, glistening ray greasing
The elbows of noontime.
Large, mourning boulders jilted by jealous streams serve as tour guides,
Deflecting pirouetting spectrums that harass the eyes as you ascend northwards . . . .
Welcome, Rover!
This is Northern Nigeria,
The foothill of God.
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