Tade Ipadeola

Pages: 1 2 3

Migrations

It took a desert’s heat to revisit the sorrow

Of mothers. Those for whom the world entire

Was Ramah. Women for whom no tomorrow

Offered lasting solace. Whose rueful tears tire

Not. It did not matter, saint or courtesan

If a son or daughter cannot be found

In the wake of a slaving raid, as one woman

They mourned freeborn children now bound

And their anguish rolled loose like the lexeme

Of the desert, whose monotonous eye rhymes

Deep and wide, was temptation to blaspheme:

Offspring crossing boundaries to another time.

Elemental in their sackcloth, the women wept

Their way to private purgatories, where pain

Was alpha and omega, where torture, adept

As priests at inquisition, defamed old Spain.

The names of children, sons and lovers

Accumulated in the store of memory and spilled

Out of bounds, the names of brothers,

The names of those who fought, those killed

Resisting the tide. These names rose a monument

Through time, through stormy weather and fair,

Onomastic totems, towering where they went

Invincible. Names invisible and essential as air.

Pages: 1 2 3

4 Comments

4 Comments so far ↓
  • yinka Elujoba says:

    Wow. This is fluid. Your choice of words are legendary. Great write!

  • akerebulu segun pius says:

    From the day I met you, it has alway being education for me, you always amaze me with you writing. I will always ask for more…

  • Tosin Gbogi says:

    Great sounds and music …

  • Nathaniel Soonest says:

    After the festival in Eko,
    The conjugal meet,
    Mate
    And Meat,
    The Naija-Italiano
    Feast.
    I wanted more,
    More from the literary-pot,
    More
    From the seasoned broth.
    Now I’ve got it,
    Minced meat,
    So I chew on bit-by-bit.
    I love also
    the way these hides of words u knit,
    The bait I joyfully swallow
    Drowning beneath
    Ur sea of metaphors,
    Urs are stream of balms for the cure of all sores.

Leave a Comment