Gratitude

Does it come to logic to make your benefactor
the subject of your inveterate antipathy?
Yet you compare unfavourably to their
capacity for resilience and benevolence,
and to their integrity.
Why would rancour substitute gratitude,
against the source of your privileges?
At a check:
It’s the platform for your existence,
your advocate from the cradle,
pipe to your sustenance,
the reason why you can speak,
why you are heard,
the bough that shares in your burdens.
At another check:
Of what value is a malignant
reproachful disposition,
but a precursor to ill health?
May gratitude lighten up your burdens.
Humanity as a contextual entity
criss-crosses tedious milieus,
whereupon its identity is defined.
Wouldn’t life locate challenges and.
through the trials,
delineate and offer solutions,
using knowledge and skills,
to move society to agreeable heights?
At a further check:
When last did you check
the myriad of belligerence you visited
on your neighbours and compatriots?
Do you care?
Do you contribute even a dime of your earnings
to the commonwealth,
from where services go out to the society?
You think society operates off our collective sweat?
Really?!!!
Mind and mend your ways!

Before the sun sets

Me-thinks financial auditing scrutinises records
and identify, for criticism, moot marks of non-accountability.
Eloquent integrity in both character and professionalism.
So, nought is expended save for the tone of their composition.
I offer to be corrected but,
Is he an auditor who at the onset of his trade declares:
“And, hither, I received no welcome!
“No banquet, nor lunch and,
As I see, no dinner will be served?”
As he pleads for pecuniary inducement
From his subjects of audit?
He checks not the accounts,
Nor for authorities to incur expenditure.
But, for piggishness and greed,
He seeks to okay the books for a price,
After all, he assumes,
Public service is boulevard for larceny.
His miserable misanthropic character
Mislays his duties to scurvy tricks to extract gratification.
What becomes of public trust?
Must we go forth pillaging, with toothsome delight,
the honour of this country?
Are we truly those who pledged
To serve this country:
“With all my strength
And defend her honour and glory?”
Do we think of the repercussions?
Won’t things scurry, if the sun sets,
Towards an assured precipice?
Come on dear Compatriots!!!
Transform, to the service and honour of this country,
Your scummy energy for these distasteful indulgences,
And believe me,
The BRICS would be but economies
heard of far behind our hind legs.   

Hope

‘It's so easy for me to write for others and so difficult to do the same for myself’, says Ms Donna Lou Holloman (@_LadyDon). She is my very good friend. ‘That's modesty especially when you espouse other peoples’ excellences’, I told her adding ‘someone should write about you as well dear Donna. Although reciprocity should not be your objective’.
Being a humble personality she wrote back to me saying ‘I don't feel I've earned that yet. Everyone has a sad story, and I've yet to earn any personal glory. I have yet to accomplish anything significant to ease the burdens or heal the hearts of my fellow man. They say knowledge is power, but held in the hand it's merely a seed until it's sown in fertile land’.
That's humility again in addition to modesty on the part of Donna. I was not surprised at her not owning up to 'any personal glory'. But I feel if someone were to write on Donna so much would be put down.
I wrote back to her therefore with a confession that I was personally aware of her deep interest in seeing justice done to society generally. I continued:

“I know of your abhorrence of impunity and its resultant tyranny against the weak of society. You have gone ahead to establish contacts and advocacy processes to see the wicked brought to book. This coming out from personal conviction for proprietary and from the fall out of the gruesome murder of your beloved son by, I think, agents of state. Having said that, I am also aware of your interest in protecting and pushing for the recognition of the rights of the neglected elements of the American society. The native American Indians for example. This, you may be surprised, has gone a long way in accomplishing significant 'ease' for the 'burdens' of and/or 'healing' of the 'heart of many a fellow man' in a manner un recognised. A very strongly willed personality with an equally strong determination to stand against inequity, within the confines of her strength, no matter whose ox could be gored. That's Donna. I also assume you are a professional in the art of photography. You also have deep interest in nature and the environment and issues surrounding them. Someone out there could write more professionally on who is Donna and what she represents.”

Today, with Donna's kind permission, I feature one of her  iconic literary compositions. It’s a Powerful message picturesquely delivered and beautifully ornamented with definite rhyme scheme. One cannot mistake the toils gone through. I am particularly captivated by the hope, the renewed hope to overcome and inspire. It is a strong statement on a robust intent to move on.
I decided to title this poem “Hope”. Enjoy…..


“I once was an eagle soaring so high
Then came a hunter's shot, but I did not die.
I fell to the Earth on Four Corners did I land.
As fierce as a tigress ready to bite off a hand.
The forest was alight, there were flames everywhere
Home for precious life went without a care.
Indignation arose, "How could you dare?! "
Death, again, escaped me right then and right there
Once, a Redwood seed lay upon a woodsy floor
By boots of a spelunker to a cave I was bore
Dreaming of fishes and seas and distant shores
I've walked through the fire and stumbled through the rain
It's time to emerge from this cave's slumber and all of its pain
The Shimmering Path we shall pave with joy for life
Instead of longing for the grave, a bittersweet knife
With spirals that flourish -a renewed purpose they nourish
Justice and Hope and Beauty and Life
To live and to lead; In serenity and peace - without malice or strife
Choosing not the paths of violence or hate,
I stand before you, humbly
Desiring to enter the Gate”

Donna Lou Holloman (All rights reserved)

The height of the month of March

The harrowing haze of a heated temperature,
Which cooks the day and night more intense,
The height of the month of March,
Wherein you squatter belly wise dripping
with profuse perspiration and heavily bodied,
Jumbled by the humid heat,
37°C in the day and 32°C at night.

Yet locked indoors you are for the night.
In Abuja the 'big man’s city',
In buildings with windows
Fortified by stronger metal might,
Behind heavy gates and doors.
The heat rages on nevertheless,
unperturbed by the buzzing of Air conditioners.

You will prefer to be in Kuje prison,
When the ‘Power Holding Company’,
Hold their power,
With no fuel in your electricity gen set,
And not owning an ‘I pass my neighbour’,
Yet you live in Kwali with its ‘advanced level’ mosquitoes,
Or in Gwagwalada with ‘pleasant’ messy gutters.

I wish things could revert one more time,
To those pristine days,
In our villages with abundant trees,
Scanty roaming vehicles and even fewer
Motorcycles which, today, emit tons
Of carbon monoxide lethal to health,
And overheating the environment.

I wish I could drag my bamboo mat,
As we did at nights in the hot season,
Call upon friends each with their doormat,
spread at the frontage of our door-less houses,
And sleep with unobstructed tranquility,
To be woken up by the distant sound of the Mu’ezzin,
Heralding the dawn and calling faithfuls to prayer,