After Nnadi Samuel
The river no longer sings to me; and I know,
in the basin of my throat, what holds it back.
The roses now are molting into thistles, and
I cannot hold back the despair. The way the
earth gave open at the taste of the dusty
evening cyclone, even the shuttling flowers
bow to the fine rubbish in the rainbow-lit oil.
A flotsam of fishes scrape the delta, and
flamingos no longer pluck the water with their
wings. I, a boy, born into the creeks of this
earthly ruin, can no longer gaze at the blatant
sky. My chest drags in the polluted atmosphere
The fishes plunging in
and out the sea now stomachs the crude oil,
and we have them for dinner. Nature knows
little about the hand which yanks the flowers
from their host. The children with skins brown
like rusted zincs dance to the song of buckets.
Empty buckets with litanies of how the cruor of
oil now flagellate the skin of the sea. What
wilderness can witness peace? I run
down the home of a green body, and find the
mouth of a shark lying in wait. Everything
which blooms, does so at the behest of nature.
