Photo Source: Tiv Cultural Carnival (TCC)
What shall I say of my age?
There isn’t much. If you care,
Hear it from the dirge
Swirling in the village square.
Araola is drumming gángàn
But she’s honing a grating tune.
The echoes call out the void
Of the clean years destroyed.
The sound lilts with every octave.
It swells with the hills of the Plateau
Dredged with the tears of Arewa.
Her plains have stopped to bear.
The grains have grown fewer
And the fields, the sites of brash brews
Where children, broken are lowered.
From the grooves below the Niger,
The ogénè of Ikenga is ceasing to excite.
It trades in muffles and bitter elixir.
The women are failing to swing.
They yowl across to each other
As pains wheeze in between.
Uchenna didn’t call home yesterday,
One squeezes. The other tinkles
As she shuts out the images of her
Violators with wielded clubs and spears.
And the great gidó billows from the Benue plains.
If I should tell you of the tales riding on her rains,
You will grow older than my look. I’m grayed.
But it has nothing to do with my age
Except for the dyes of many wails
Which Has had me ashen-faced.
Now sixty, can I hope for more grace?
Can my blotchy face give rise to more lush greens?
Can my dappled contours give rise to a glistening rainbow?
Dominic is a social critic, a poet and an essayist with contributions in a number of legacy and new media, including The Punch Newspaper, Afreecan Read, Words Rhymes and Rhythm, Poemhunters, Pulse.ng, (the default) Nigeria News24 and others. As a researcher with interests in climate change, governance and the African perspective, he is studying towards a doctoral degree in Public and Development Management at the School of Public Leadership, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Dominic contributes to Afreecan Read team in the capacity of Public Relation.
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