Attending school was never an option when the empty drum echoes the song of yearning grains, trekking the lanes with bathroom slippers that awaits a welcoming party in the municipal waste truck while idanuwa na zubar da kwalla.
Bafflement grips me when some sit in their Sunday best with glossy heels kicking a storm for not getting steak when tuwo miyan kuka is served.
Wai mai duniyar nan ke zama ne? The rich are becoming richer and the poor, poorer. Wai fa we can no longer spare a Kobo for the sick and weak when aljuhun mu na zuba. Ni ban ce kudi bata yi ba, wealth is everyone's dream amma sparing little for the needy too is good.
Categories:
zama, humanity, poems, poetry, poverty,
Form: Prose Poetry
Worn down by migration's perils;
Worn down by Neolithic spears -
They survived.
Though sabre-tooth gnashings stayed them;
Though Dire-wolves pack-savaged them -
They survived, they survived.
Though pursued by pharaohs for sport;
Though hannibalised by the armies of Zama -
They survived.
Through the ravaging of ivory coffles;
Through Tippu Tib's and Karamoja's lustings -
They survived, they survived.
Through Mutesa's and Lobengula's slayings;
Through the fauna annihilation of the Boers -
They survived.
Through King Leopold's bloody harvests;
Through trophy accumulators on safaris -
They survived, they survived.
Civilization had not yet flickered;
Its embers may have long faded -
They survive.
One thing to learn from them:
Inoffensive sagacity -
They survive, they survive, they survive.
Note 1: this is an imitation of the format of a beautiful poem “Trees” by Ondra Lysohorsky
Note 2: Tippu Tib, Karamoja Bell, Mutesa and Lobengula were all involved in the nineteenth century ivory trade.
Categories:
zama, animal,
Form: I do not know?