POEM: Quest For Country
I am a wanderer wandering in a
desert of distant land among these deserted tribes. I walk among peddlers of religion
and culture, their petty chatter and discordant meddling, these merchants’ sybaritic
fiddling of men’s souls, mowing down as they go. Their barter trade and
rhetoric banter a baffle to sanity. In this quagmire of riddles I am in search
of my country. Where can I find her? The rustling leaves rotting away beneath
my feet return no answer. My homeland once called Green, flowing White with
peace, was known as hope to many dreams. In this dusty ash now to search, a
descending journey to the catacombs of hell itself, may I see my bride, my
country, unhurt and alive. To the depths I now descend.
We are one, faceless shadows whispers
and fade beneath soundless migrating clouds. Uncertain as their form, uncanny
in their darkness, concocting within the shadows, conjuring the storm of doubts
in the drumbeats of silent noise, creeping from tree to tree, vanishing away as
soon as they appear behind the presence of dying trees, with scarred branches
of lifeless leaves. Until the moon's shine was blotted by the darkness of gossips
and lies.
Their woven claws of evil, strong
sharp claws forged perhaps by devil’s Darksmith. The forest rodents desert me.
They seek shelter not from me but the shadows along. Alone now to self, am buried
within my own cowardly fear. Will I forge ahead where no mortal dare? Among
these crowdless crowd of forest trees
and shrubs where can I find a citizen’s beloved? My beloved, standing elegant
as the Oak, she is majestic as a favoured Mahogany.
I stumble blind from towns into
villages. I feel pondering minds preying my conscience, they seek to drain me
but I must go on. I am afraid I cannot return. I made my vow in the chambers of
my heart but my oath before the eyes of all. Until I reach my bride I cannot
rest. Though darkness fondles me everywhere I turn, the caresses of my bride is
alive as her first touch. Nevertheless I carry on not for fear but for the fear
of fear itself. These probing eyes judging my cause, one more convict to commit
to jail, but not today. The faint sparkles of flickering flames keep me warm
when no words to say. I am a bandit of the fate you frame.
You are not my brother! Say the
common ghosts that stalks the country folks from the land once called Green.
Shall I be tempted to lust the same? To nurse their thoughts and agree we are
not same? Yet I know reason and anger are two thunderbolts that don’t strike a
man same time. The daggers of my mouth must now be guided by thoughts.
Therefore, I cannot answer the grumbling ghosts. The rousing rage must return
to the abyss of its cage. Though I know these ghosts so well as my own scent
but they exist because we created them to be. The hate they seek in me I do not
have. I have no love for the antiques of our antiquity, my bride is lost, this
is my cause. Onward I forge.
Inside my mind I roam, in it lays
my answer. My brother is no different than I. He was born as I was, suckled
what I sucked, walked this earth as I do. When I find my brother, I know as he
knows, we are mirrors aface one another. My pain is his tale. His worries have
been my suffering. His blood is the sweats of my brows.
Where do we begin from here right
now? I look for my country, where can I find her? A mist or a vain pursuit of
shadows, a mirage or the blurry visions of a drunk? She eludes me in politics
and ethnicity. The grumbling northern wind silences the sweet sounds of her footsteps.
The Southern rain erases the artistry of her footprints. So the wind and the
rain came dancing in divorce. Along came a hurricane. An impending disaster had
whisked my shy bride away from sight.
At the rough root of mountain
caves and atop high cliffs, the drums of warring echoes from within,
heartbeats, the wailing cry we pet to sleep. The sigh we must bury beneath our
breath, in it lays the torment of the citizen’s pride. For if the ghosts hears,
who shall we tell? That my bride is haunted by fears. To my brother I must
reach. He is a warrior and my guide. Two hands cannot dare the problems caused
by four. Where is that narrow cause for which we are born? Born to fight and to
strive? Where is the answer to the oppression
of one, the injustice of all?
In this darkness the birds mock me. Black birds
circles over me. These are scavenging vultures tweeting propaganda. Predators
of truth, the catastrophe of peace, such is their sport. They are mocker and
destruction of just men. With every swoop, every wing raised in flight so my
trials and my beloved’s, to turn my back against where I must face. Them I cannot
touch. Me, I cannot fly. Myself I cannot hide from their mocking tweets. Grumpy
old, divides the foolish young and proud, then the spoil.
The future is a powdery substance
blown to the wind. Do we chase the wind itself or the substance now invisible
to sight? Or should I stand here, weeping my misery? Weeping for what I wasn’t
given? The silver spoon my lips did not
kiss? How can I gather what's lost? By this hidden river behind the curtain of
my eyes? The veil to my own soul? We are one! The returned shadows say. Ignoring
my quest, my thoughts altogether. Yet they have no face, only a mask that
covers their acts. Where is my brother in this dark of time? For the South wind
refuses to yield, the West wind has gone to roost in the forest of plenty, I
see a raging storm, euroclydone would one day be born.
Do you drink it? A creature
emerged. A Goblin with a gold crest to its chest. Drink what? I asked this dark
creature of the darkness. The wine of pitiful sleep, the numbness of
patriotism, the deafness to injustice, the slumber to violence and hatred and
all that is and will be. He snarled, hissed then glee. Never in my life have I
seen a pitiful creature beggarly in its own contentment. I looked the other
way.
I drink from the wine of
tolerance, I am espoused to peace, I am the twin of unity, a slave to country whom
I freely love and serve. I seek my brother to share with me, the ravishing red
wine of this prosperity. We shall set out sails and justice shall blow behind
our trail. We seek a country not by politics or hate. We refuse that wine
mingled with gall. Nevertheless I'll tell my brother and compatriot I saw you.
Together we shall one day return
and build our home, our country, here where I stand, with a map without lines.
The sun of our strength shall brightly shine. In the many sweat and blood
already offered, ours will add, it will be part of the many that makes the mighty
ocean swim. But now I must look for my brother, in no state but from all state,
in no region but cruising through all. Neither Northern deserts sands, Western
mountains crag, clay particles of Eastern crust, nor the oily sand of the
southern ridge, nothing shall take our eyes from our pride.
What no politics see and no
policies fix, we would walk hand in hand, mould with bare hands our bricks. On
bended knees with faces against the wind, we promise a country where all is
just and all men free. I see the future the great country of Nigeria. One not
only restructured but restored. One who walks peace and talk it. One who’s Law
is never blunt, the balances of justice unrigged, our bride never tricked and
raped. On this grass we call home, not to one but to all and many whom shall be
called. We shall build our homes upon our hopes.
We can be great, greater than we
have ever known. Though this moon shine and the darkness abound, I seek my
brother and compatriot, and together we shall find our beloved country. Now a
sleeping queen we must awake when I reunite with my brother again. This our God
is all we pray.
Paul AremoOluwa
October 1, 2017
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY NIGERIA
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