Reminisces on the eve of my departure

Olukemi Omoyeni

Olukemi Omoyeni

Sunday 2 May 2021

Have you seen a whirl wind wreck?

It is fast, furious and violent,

violent, yet bearing no sword,

This I saw on the sea as I stood ashore,

Waiting to leave the shores of what's left of Nigeria.

The sea was calm yet a whirl wind I see,

A tempest, ravaging the commoner,

He knows almost nothing of his destiny.

This land has become flaccid,

Flaccid of milk and everything that bubbles its beauty,

We are near dissipation while the gods watch.

I await impatiently to depart,

Looking back on these fine green hills,

While I take the most uncertain step of my life,

Uncertainty of what is to come as my fate

In the land of strangers,

Wishing my clan will a day whisper to me;

Return! For the land is green again.

I looked around, again at the hills,

Rustic and cocooned in mist,

On the other side of these hills, is a land belonging to the unknown

Flowing with the many treasures of my nativity

Wasted and cheaply transported by it's very owns.

These treasures forged a river,

Upon which my boat will one day again sail back home,

But the currents of this ocean on which shore I stand

Plays me a rhythm,

A rhythm that pushes me more to the deep,

To leave and succeed, or stay and endure.

So I spoke to the wind,

I would rather sail with your rhythm

And behold the glory of treasures of my nativity,

As it flourishes another man's land.