A Moonlit Night

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The sky is bare and barren tonight 
The heavens are glorious and starless 
Not a single cloud to be seen 
A happy full moon shines 
In all brilliance and delight. 
The land is bathed in her light 
As bright and clear as day. 

Read: Village Boy Impressions - The Wailing Bride

The title reads: The Reason Why the Chameleon has a Broken Head

All are gathered before the house. 
The children are awake and ecstatic 
Sleep has vanished from our eyes 
With the rising of the delightful moon. 
Boys resume the afternoon game of 'socksball', 
The girls renew their ampe rivalry, 
The little ones driving tin cars, 
Others enacting ‘Dada and Mama’ scenes 
To the amusement of the real ones. 
Later, we start playing 'agbeli-gbeli', 
Yelling and racing round the huts. 
As are the children in other compounds

 Read: Village Boy Impressions - How to Help Ghana and Yourself

Inquisitive chickens lured by the moonlight,
Have bolted from their house.
Peering and scattering the soil with their feet
In vain hope of finding grains or ants.
We laughed at their insatiable greed.
The guinea fowls, more securely locked up,
Are silent and still, occasionally scuffling.
But the goats and the kids prance about,
And the he-goats resume their mating racket,
Chasing the she-goats round the kraal.
Making a din enough to rival our chatter 
We shout in anger at their lasciviousness. 
For goats care not for siblings or parents,
But clatter and clamour after all.


The adults sit on the ‘dampala’,
Trying hard at conversation,
With occasional cautions and admonitions 
Which all go unheard and unheeded 
At last they give up and call us to gather.
Time to recall the tales of old,
Tales that inspire and uplift and entertain.
What tales shall we tell tonight?
“The adventures of Asuom”!
Our response rang out immediately.
We could never tire of hearing
The amusing tales of the cunning creature.

So it begins and all fall silent.
Mother has the floor
We listen and sing, and dance
And we sigh and cry, and laugh
The care-free squealing of youths 
As tale after tale of the old rascal
Is told for the umpteenth time.
The dancing fill the night air with dust
And the cackle of our shrill voices 
Pierce the night far and long
For sound travels far in the still night.

 Read: Village Boy Impressions - Bergen, City of Hills


But soon father has the floor.
(Time to scare the children to sleep)
Tales of beasts and ghosts and ogres
Soon have us all trembling,
And glancing over our shoulders
As the moon drops quickly, casting long shadows.
One by one we grow silent and droop,
And soon the ‘bad’ old man
Has no audience and chuckles to himself.
Then the small ones have to be carried
Inside to sleep.
At this time,  the whole village is silent
Except for the crickets and a distant owl.

Read another interesting poem about childhood here

1. socksball - old rags and polybags rolled together into a kind of ball.
2. ‘agbeli-gbeli’ is a game of hide and seek where you hide and when discovered, you have to run into a designated circle before the seeker touches you.





Location: Sandema, Ghana

Comments

  1. Anonymous3:05 pm, December 02, 2016

    Oh brothet, those good old days are gone. You have reminded me of the fight between 'Akpakuri'and 'Apuuik'. But you know the tale about 'Asuom'and 'Aneuok'. In this tale, Asuom asked Aneuok to accompany him to his in-laws house to which the later obliged. Lo and behold, the former was punished severely by by the later. The mistake of the former was that, he kept the into one of his big ears. You can imagine what happened. The later instructed the former to do things that an in-law will not do when present in the in-laws' house. One of the things the later instructed the former to do was to ask the mother in-law to come and have sex with him (the former). When the former tried to resist, the later stinged him and he obliged. Now this happened because when they got to the former in-law's house, the latter refused to come out of the former's ear. Brother, keep it up. Is me, WHITTAKER

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. John Akanvariyuei Agandin8:19 pm, December 02, 2016

      Hahaha! Whittaker, thanks for reminding me of one of the most hilarious tales. I had been trying to recall the tale of Asuom and Anueong. I am putting together a second volume of Asuom's adventures soon.

      Delete

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