Testaments Of Hope

 

If this is not the end, what then is?

Feet wobbling

like the swinging pendulum,

Stomach rumbling 

yet striving to subdue

the cuffs, curbing.

Yesteryears, 

Our baskets were full with pride 

Now, revelings reeled past 

and our lips know groans.

Tiny legs, round bellies

From cassava, our offsprings suffer.

When shall our land be scoured

From the brocade 

of grime

that clad her sullen frame?

When shall laughters return? 

To refurbish our faces 

plundered 

By grenades of gloom? 

Yesteryears, 

Our women were favourites in the eyes of gods,

Swaddled in silvers,

Bathed with indigo, 

Coloured with cam-wood,

But now the sky rains down fire

And smiles on our lips are set ablaze 

When shall our land be scoured? 

If our lips could part for laughter to gush,

our waists, we shall wriggle with ecstasy felt within,

Someday, the rays of dawn shall visit

And this brownout that plunge us shall dwindle.

This hurricane, this thunder, this roaring rain

Shall depart the dormitory of our sky.

Another rainbow, dripping with honey

 on her lips,

Bless our seasons with centuries of bliss and songs.

* * * ** * * * ** **

Olukoga Opemipo (Opemiplenty) is a young creative-writer who believes in creativity and the beauty in writing. She’s a poet, fiction writer and lover, short-stories writer and an art enthusiast. She’s a student of the great University of Ibadan, currently studying Linguistics and African Languages. She believes in self-development, creativity and change for this to her is the spice of life. Her aim is to speak with her pen, impact and bring people to cherish and love literature and art just as she has for years.

Kehinde Adedeji (The Giant Griot) is a young poet and writer. He writes about pains and laughter, tears and hope, beauty and scars, fires and faith, silence, women, Africa, etc.