A call beyond the rivers, across the streams, From where the sonorous sound of breathing gongs Entwined with the heartbeats of panting drums

THE CALL: AN INDIGENOUS NIGERIAN POEM

A call beyond the rivers, across the streams,

From where the sonorous sound of breathing gongs

Entwined with the heartbeats of panting drums

And the melodious tune of a whistling flute

Were huddled with the howling of spirited wind.

A call with it's fragments on the footprints of

elapsed time,

From where maidens danced and swirled waists

Adorned with straps of beads and cowries

To the epithalamion of male singers with hoarse

voice

Under the alluring stares of a bright ecstatic sun.

A call, far fetched from the tongue of a fading past,

From where antelopes heeded to the roaring calls

From the raging guns of brave hunters.

From where chants of praises were cascadded on

the face of shrines

To atone the spirits of vengeful gods.

From where farmers hearkened to the whispers of

the dawn

To prune and tend the gardens of the earth.

A call voiced though the roars of stormy seas,

From where motherhood, with her warm bossom

Lulled babies to sleep

While they grew though the blazing eyes of their

fathers.

Of heroic warriors who through valour's eyes

Knew the bruised rough faces of victory and defeat.

Of tamed moments when the sun drowsed to sleep

For the night to spread her sheet of enchanting

glows

Of glittering stars and gleaming moon

To reflect the children's faces as their mind

Pondered on the genuinity of a fabled moonlight

tales.

A call from the endless depth of a howling wind,

To retell the virgin tales of once defiled origin

Through the civilized mouths of lost sons and

daughters.

A call through the shrill voice of ancestors'

silhouettes

Whose pride were once pierced by the spear of

servitude.

A lost dead call risen from the solitary grave of

silence

As an immortal for the fate of black pride.

A warm call, from the scarred mouth of Africa.

Written by: Adedeji Raphael

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