We grew up to love rivers and lakes, open refuge
that saved children from the hard labour at home -
every parent knew where first to look for a missing child
before ever alerting the town-crier to beat the drum.
Many of us did not concentrate at school in anticipation
of going straight to swim until dusk when eyes turned red.
Rivers and lakes must have cried themselves into silence -
we spent nothing of our millions of earnings to save them.
For decades water hyacinth overran the pristine waterscape
in convoys of weed and started stifling the beautiful host.
With the oil companies only looking after profit margins,
oil slicks easily found their way to bury the Waters alive.
Parents still make demands of children as never before;
the ageless sun remains master archer in the dry season
and young ones ever restless seek new bathing spots
to relieve themselves of the sun's scorching gaze.
Burrow pits of road builders , deluged into perennial
waterholes, provide respite from hard labour at home
but there no fish, no water spirits borne by current;
no Mami wata and others to share the salt of life.
In these holes abandoned caterpillars and other monsters
drag down the swimmer without recourse to a treat .
We are fortunate we still swim in groups in the open.
After gas flares, oil slicks, and hyacinths converge
to turn rain into acid and all the methane seeps in
to raise new syndromes that destroy the body,
Where next to seek refuge from step-mothers
when the sun flares up in its sadistic fit?
