The recent spate of killings and the June 3rd Dana crash have affected me in recent times more than I'm even willing to admit to myself. The way we murder ourselves daily with the way we live, the needless deaths that occur daily makes me feel deeply sad. I penned down the few verses below to express my feelings about the crash and the country in general.
While I may not write any poem in a year, of course I am not like my last brother Akeem who, almost effortlessly churns out really great poems almost daily, I don't remember having struggled to write a poem like I struggled with this one. Not that I didn't know what message I wanted to pass across, if anything, I had too many, but I struggled more with how to put my thoughts together. I hope you like it, and reflect on it, because I believe if we really have a desire to change this country for the better, it has to start with each one of us doing our parts. Here goes...
My spirit is low
My thought refuses to flow
My words unafraid to take flight
Unlike a certain Dana plane of ill-fate
Which took flight of failed descent
Plunging hundreds to mental distress
Crushing those on the ground
With their rooms not out of its bounds
And the nation thrown into mourning
Praying its effects will fade with the morning
A crash preventable by precedents
Of EAS, ADC and Sosoliso antecedents
A people with murdered shock values
This fact we’ll quickly dispute and argue
With an over-abundance of regulators
Whose successes lie in non-regulation
Getting their palms greased to un-regulate
And thereby stamping what we term our ill-fate
A people too quick to forget
Pretending that is how we progress
Covering our forgetfulness with brilliant humour
Even while the nation thrives on true rumours
When a nation adopts the god of money
Do you wonder that there’ll always be mourning?
Adenike Abimbola Oyalowo
©June 2012.
No comments:
Post a Comment