EMEKA GOC Ogaraku Poet Free verse

THE CRAB IN THE POT OF RIVERS

THE CRAB IN THE POT OF RIVERS
(In Memory of Elechi Amadi and the Shadows of 1967)

We shared the tongue of the ancient soil,
The yam, the market, the seasonal toil.
We carved our shrines by the same Ala,
And looked to the stars of the same tomorrow.
But when the borders began to bleed,
The soil was choked by a different weed.

A brand-new flag flew over the palm,
A trumpet blasted, destroying the calm.
They called it a haven, a brotherly hood,
But built the walls where the forest stood.
They said, "Jump in, we are fleeing the blade!"
But we saw the cage that the master made.

To the heartland’s eye, it was freedom's cry;
To the riverine son, it was adapt or die.
For the smallest crab in the eastern school
Fears the giant claw of a brother’s rule.
So the captain chose to break the bond,
To swim away from the burning pond.

They locked him tight in a iron room,
And branded his name with a traitor’s doom.
While children starved on the Biafran floor,
He wore the green of the federal war.
Two truths collided, two rivers clashed,
And the ancient bridge of the east was smashed.

The war is quiet, the ink is dry,
The Sunset faded across the sky.
One side still weeps for the million’s dead,
One side remembers the words he said.
Bound by the blood of a fractured past,
The crabs still fight in the shadows cast.

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