Poetry

AP photo

By

Siraj A Sabuke

Somewhere

(For Amina Ali, the first among the abducted Chibok schoolgirls to return home)

Twigs of a dream

Shattered by the clawed

Hands of fate

Carved into a dross

Dangling in the bowels

Of technical slavery

Amidst the dark shades

Of scorpions ruled forest

A child is born

A girl is taken

A mother is rescued

A path is lit

Welcome home, Amina

Though not yet the Elysian

Field you craved

But your sorrow – full heart

Dripping fluids of anguish

And rivers of despair

Shall be burnt to ash

To be reincarnated in the Eden of bliss

Somewhere, some way

Girlhood is lost, yet, I

Welcome my sister

Welcome woman!

Welcome, to you, mother

Home welcomes you home

Our country is a whip of death

i saw a girl picking crumbs of burnt bread

on the broken belly of her raped homeland

reminiscing about the songs she learn at madrasa

before the coming of war which have become garment of grief

scissored & strayed into eerie ellipsis of sorrow

grandmother used to tell me how abominable it was

to die when the rain has come or during harvest

alas! she is not here to see our fading fate

here comes rain but our noses cannot tell petrichor

from incestuous & suffocating smell of blood

blood not of game during Christmas or Eid festival

but blood of boys & girls hoping to see home after school

blood of women & men seeking survival at marketplace

of lads & lasses lost in realms of romance…

blood-red colour has dirtied the once live-green flag of our country

to us, our country is a whip of death

held against us by our omniplunderous gods

if not, why the incessant killings of southern Kaduna

why the senseless mayhem by men of Ile-ife

why the blood thirsty militancy of Niger-Delta

which of the impotent gods drank the blood of Shiites in Zaria

which of the gods are making us sheepish sacrifices

in Borno, we have forgotten the road to the cemetery

for our dead are dungs thrown to rot in mass graves

we have become singers of sour songs riddled with repetitions

repetitions of guns. bombs. bullets. blood. death. widows. orphans…

we have forgotten the holy songs of peace we learn at madrasa

Siraj A Sabuke

Siraj A Sabuke lives in NEW BUSSA, Nigeria, Joint winner of WRR GREEN AUTHOR PRIZE 2016. Co-author of RAINBOWS & FIREFLIES (WRR, POETRY 2016). He studies English Language at Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto. He has a great passion for writing. He writes SUFI poems. He is influenced by many writers, most especially, Laura M Kaminski who nurses his art of writing. Sabuke sees writing as a life that must be lived.