Stolen Home.

They came home, to find it was no more

The dusty red earth,

Holy and welcoming to our feet

Soft to touch as we kneel to fill our palms with a part of universe

A land so blessed we bow our foreheads and kneel in homage

To the mysteries buried beneath.

The rusty, dusty red-earth, all gone.

Gone!

And in its place coal-tarred, bitumen-filled grounds.

Hard roads, so unwelcoming and unforgiving.

Before, we gave the blood of cockerels to the spirits of the soil

And so we walked, young and old alike,

To our mud homes on bare-feet, freely and safely.

And they came, those fair strangers

And told us that we desecrate our land,

They told us our chi was no good at all

We believed them without questioning,

And our brothers that dared to question,

they made us cast aside.

Chei! Chimo! Alu!

And so now, these roads feed not on the cockerels’ blood

But on the blood of our innocent sons and daughters

Who discard their feet for fast metal boxes

Streamlined for speed.

Ah speed!

And so we all hurry but unto death.

Earning more and yet poorer still.

Yes, they came home

And found it was no more.

They came home to find it was no more.

Those tranquil scenes and yet something deeper.

Foliage so green it mesmerizes the senses.

The palm trees adorning narrow, winding roads

And wild flowers with hidden thorns sleeping peacefully by the roadside.

The smells of burning woods and oils

The air filled with aromas of ogiri and ugba

And colors, such a kaleidoscope that the eyes cannot contain

And so, it savors it slowly and richly in the heart, in the mind, in the spirit.

Colors everywhere, black signs on mud walls

showing the passageof ancestors long gone.

Colors and patterns on abada wrappers

Hugging shapely buttocks

and breasts jiggling with the ripeness

of untapped juices within.

Maidens with jigida beads,

Swaying to the unsung rhythms of their waists.

Co -wives gossiping and giggling on their way to the stream,

Of steamy nights with their dim oma.

Their muddy-brown calabashes resting majestically on their ojas.

Men walking the earth and living off their sweat,

They proudly provide for their women and their seeds.

Children dancing barefoot in the salty rain,

And then with such blissful abandon,

Hurrying for a place at the old man’s feet

For tales told under the moonlight

Against sounds of chirping birds and crickets.

All gone! Skyscrapers everywhere.

Gases and fuels and chemicals

Filling our senses, killng our cells.

No more ogiri in mama’s soups,

No! too smelly rather sweet smelling maggi

And so we hear of high blood- this and hyper –that,

Austism-this and deficiency-that.

The children no longer listen to the tortoise tales anymore

Rather they sit in a trance before a box and clog their ears

Watching and listening strange sights and sounds.

Yes, they came home

And found it was no more.

Our great grand fathers were heathens, they said.

One man, one wife! Hmmm…I laugh in wry amusement.

And we believed them without asking questions.

Now a man marries ten wives, but serially,

Casting the old aside for another,

And this is the man that is civilized. He is cultured!

Nna anyi, can you hear me?

Our maidens were barbaric, they were crude, they said

Because they had soothing, healing uli adorning their glowing skin.

And pray, tell, what are these knifed in tattoos?

Why the eye pencils, and lipsticks and cancerous blush?

Oh I go weary, I go tired with loss.

I must stop, stop this now or go mad!

Indeed, my ancestors came

But found it was no more.

© ‘Kego Onyido