An African Night

I lie there on that rat-shredded raffia mat,
my thoughts running through the bush paths
to meet my dreams at the bottom of the Iroko tree.

Full moon comes and goes
I still lie on that mat staring at agama lizards creeping
up and down the bamboo sticks that hold my mud hut up,
Hope sneaking away like smoke from the burning fire-woods
through the holes in the thatch roof of mother’s kitchen

I am like a tilapia fish roasting
on the wood of time In the heat of harmattan

I am deaf to the sounds of
talking drums and crying wooden flutes
that play me to our ancestors
in high notes on traditional clefs.
I am sightless to the heart melting sight of
naked pot-bellied children
laughing and playing in the mud

I push the burning fire-wood together under the steel tripod-stand
and splints of fire fly into the air like in a performance to lift my spirit

My dreams have uprooted the Iroko tree
but my reflection in the eyes of reality hasn’t changed,

I have learnt to chew with content
when boiled yam, dipped in palm oil meets with my watering tongue,

The man drinking palm wine and breaking kola nuts with
my father in his thatch roof hut after a long day on the yam farm
lights a picture of me painted on the walls of tomorrow

At mid night when the moon smiles down
And when we gather to sing and dance,

I dance until my hope is tired
and until my dreams lay down to sleep,
to sleep through that long and vibrant African night.