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Up, to the roof
surrounded by bricks
strange to the mud house
we've long lived,
we look;
Staring like a child
blank of thoughts
and imaginations
of the stories beautifully crafted by grandmother's mouth of mastery;
A F I R I K A !
when shall it be,
that we shall find
the garment of culture
we yanked off
into the river of civilisation?
Every morning
mother weeps,
At noon
she wears the cloak of strength and hope,
In the dead of the night
she bares her nakedness to the moon,
making supplications to her 'Chi',
for her offsprings who have tasted the fruit of an alien tradition,
A F I R I K A !
A child who abandons its mother
may never find its way,
Ómó àlè ní ómó yèn!
As Papa would say,
"A man who does not know
where the rain began to beat him
cannot know where he dried his body"