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a poem by Ola Vincent Omotade
STANZA 1
CUTLASS AND HOE:
Our weapons 'gainst piercing claws
Of frequent famine,
Our saviour from the serrated jaws
Of hunger's tyrant ruling,
Our source of satisfaction,
Gotten from first generation,
Our fathers' second wife,
Our total way of life,
Our belongings and worth,
Defensive attorney 'gainst alimentary wrath,
Cutlass and hoe, our winning weapons,
Now abandoned in the infernal mouths of dragons,
For reliance on an underground ephemeral liquid,
On which, for decade, we can't feed.
What happens when our weapons are lost?
We mourn at our grumbling stomachs' cost.
We look beyond the border,
Ordering for food to quell our hunger,
But I say it is never too late,
If we have our weapons' open hands embraced.
STANZA 2
From the horizon to the hefty height,
I perceive the scent of an approaching light,
Over-depending on a transparently thin liquid,
Mined from below, gushing as rapid rabid,
Cracking down from dim verge,
Large night when stars cross sky's dog-eared edge,
My bed is unruffled, then I thought, in fracture,
Agriculture should be our nurtured culture,
Let our souls be nourished with vegetables,
And the wound in our hearts be healed by its miracles,
Carts and lorries heaping fish and meat,
To the vendor singing in savoury splendor,
Agriculture! You brand goodness,
Our culture! You enthrall happiness,
The barn of plenty and excess,
Changes fate of boiling bitterness,
Propelling and compelling desired dreams,
And elucidating and reliving dead beams,
As others would then envy our glories,
And with pricked-up ears listen to our stories.
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