Godwin Inyang's Blog, page 16

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We were bathed with the dew hanging on leaves

and in our knapsacks were honey from bees

 

and special loafs; the birds sang and the breeze

blew; the human highway did hum and hiss

 

as we drew close to it which we’d follow

to reach the terminus and join a train that’d go

 

our way but to drop at the next point

and then navigate our way to our rest point,

 

destination I mean,

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We all marched from the field and followed a track

that brought us to the river bank and our feet did smack

 

as we marched downstream to reach the railway track

and hopped on a train that beat on the rails click-clack

 

as it headed with passengers or cargo

to go past the vast jungle to get to

 

the human big city hugging the ocean shore

where human high-rises have many a floor

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their parents’ consent or took their ambition

elsewhere to enviable fields of erudition

 

like law, medicine, science and engineering.

Like humans, the soldier ants in science were racing

 

too for outer space and in the laboratories,

scientists were dabbling with genetic properties

 

promising improved genes to every soldier ant

that if provoked could cut into halves the elephant

4088‘I’d heard of marriage where swords were drawnand some had their skin hideously torn.‘But I’m glad this marriage helps sheathe our swordsand rather we’re returning with hearts and noise‘quite happy and we all say to folkfrom all the clans, let on our ribs poke‘more love.’ When our chief ended, the emceesignalled the deejay to resume fullylifting folks’ mood with music from his

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‘I’d heard of marriage where swords were drawn

and some had their skin hideously torn.

 

‘But I’m glad this marriage helps sheathe our swords

and rather we’re returning with hearts and noise

 

‘quite happy and we all say to folk

from all the clans, let on our ribs poke

 

‘more love.’ When our chief ended, the emcee

signalled the deejay to
resume fully

 

lifting folks’ mood with

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(that drew applause from the theatre fans

but his speech had indeed the semblance

 

of a rejoinder to Tradeit’s speech earlier)

was getting married to. ‘In my days younger

 

‘which I spent in ferrying legally the timber,

I’d journeyed across the clans with every trader

 

‘as our hired timber carts would help their goods

convey to remote points in diverse neighbourhoods

 

‘and

4082

(that drew applause from the theatre fans

but his speech had indeed the semblance

 

of a rejoinder to Tradeit’s speech earlier)

was getting married to. ‘In my days younger

 

‘which I spent in ferrying legally the timber,

I’d journeyed across the clans with every trader

 

‘as our hired timber carts would help their goods

convey to remote points in diverse neighbourhoods

 

‘and

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As a teenage boy I’d witnessed a child

profusely bleeding after a cut not mild

 

by an attendant  and the
excuse the women

peddled was the attendant must have lain

 

that night with her husband, meaning a rule

she broke which showed her training from a poor school

 

she had or just an unprofessional practicer

of her craft but the bleeding evaded every answer

 

and the child’s

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‘that like a leaf would shake at the slight touch

of the breeze that back here you’d soon rush;

 

‘that deep down in your heart you decide

to follow him and together forever would reside

 

‘as husband and wife but if you did make

or was forced to make what seems like mistake,

 

‘feel free here and now to rescind your decision

as forced marriage isn’t our tradition;

 

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‘if

Once, we were wretchedly mud and thatch poor;Now, we step on concrete to the top floor.