Floetry by JulietKego: A Dirge for Nimbo…

June 9, 2016

Nna anyi who will save
your children from the brink?
A drizzle becomes a flood
and the living-dead drink
from overrun rivers
of tears, pus and blood
I am lost in shivers,
cold from this shock
of an unnamed war
fought in the backyard
of my hometown

Children’s throats slit
like salah rams
(on open fields of rusty, red grass)
Bodies charred;
their ashes sprinkled
to appease
the herdsmen of horror
who lead the flock
to the slaughter-house

The elders, bent over
with agonized chants
from wrinkled
sunken faces
ka udo di, a plea for peace?
Onye ka anyi ga kolu?

A peace of the graveyard
reigns all around me
the graves await their bodies
I am farmished
feed me; biko nyem nri
My throat thirsts for waters
of truth from polluted
rivers of Nri

Oh sons & daughters:
‘Awaken from your limbo
stand tall at the gates
of the weeping hills of Udi
bury the bodies
of our people &
protect the living
at Nimbo.’

(C) Juliet ‘Kego Ume-Onyido