Seventy seasons now
And the forest has never missed a step
In its dance towards the rain
The weaverbird and its chattering are still waiting
For the mellowing promise of the triumphal song
A cloud of locusts still hangs heavy
In our startled skies, their restless run
Trailed by the cannibal rage
Of those who hold the future between their teeth
The Minstrels, not so vagabond,
Trade dreams and darings
In the baffling courtyard of
The Prince of the Crossroads
Between Doubt’s brittle cage
And the ever-near Nirvana of a horizon
Telescoped to eye-shot
The Grasshopper divines its dance,
Its oriki a complex serenade of
Brilliant ululations and Hamletic blues
The fire-fingered women of Owu
Hew their swagger from that quarry
Where the YungbaYungba Amazons undo the veil,
Marching through chequered colonnades,
A millennial defiance in their clenched fists
Red redred
Red runs the Freedom Road
(Continued next week)
and then