The Old Ways
You ridicule the baobab tree
Where the village
After the abeng was blown
Meet to chart each new destiny
Speak of the old ways
As primitive and ancient
But crime was not rampant
Like ants scurrying in their nest
Biting at everything
And young girls did not walk
With babies
Before they had finished school
And young boys
Did not pile with nothing to do
On dusty corners
While fallowing fields turn to ruin
And families did not fall apart
Like dry corn
Shelled from withered cob.
And we knew how to disagree
In our conversations
Without the circus economy
Of unjust courts and corrupt police
And we were not civilized then
Because we were happy men.
Where the baobab tree use to be
A gym is there now
For children who do no work again.
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