Random Blues

Between seventy and eternity
(For Femi Osofisan @ 70) II

Seventy momentous seasons
And you swore:

No Longer the Wasted Breed;
We will carry our waterly blessings ashore
On the sinews of Another Raft

A new parable proclaimed our Promise
Too large for the theatre
Which composed its mask

Old questions reached out for new answers
New answers harked back to old questions

The quandary of Power
The false inevitability of Oppression
The fierce urgency of Justice

And what more to say about a country
Which sentences us all to the cruel choice
Between Courage and Cowardice

Cant and candor, angst and anger;
Between the dreams which we define
And the ones which end up defining us

But it is Hope which sustains us
In our endless seasons of anguish
Hope, that Morountodun of our magic quest

Happy Birthday, Sugarman
May yours be the kind of sweetness
That never cloys

Rise now, therefore,
Take that dream to the end of the street