Village boy Impressions

When the sun is high up,  And the adults are busy with many things, With our chores hurriedly done or abandoned,  We steal away with our little hoes  Wandering far into the farmlands  To dig along the ridges in the fields  And glean what we may or must,  For pleasure or necessity!  The pleasure being in fields abandoned,  When the rains stopped too early.  Or the yield is adjudged to be poor;  And the farmer is discouraged;  Then happily we come into our own,  For here there is great  reward.  But alas! When hunger lays siege,  And our mothers are too busy or helpless,  Our insatiable appetites are awakened. Then rich reward or not we come  And dig and scatter and peer at the earth  Like the fowls  search for woodworm  In the shrubbery  at home.  For any and every excuse  We are glad to grab a hoe and can  And head into the deserted fields...

“6th of March! March!  Nineteen fifty-seven, seven!  Ghaaana, independence day! Ghana is marching,  Ghana is marching, Ghana, Ghana,  Ghana is mar—ching!” Those were the words we sang, with our shrill voices Shuffling our feet and swinging our arms  Proud even though we knew little of what we sang And we all loved the '6th March' marching day, But surely that was a long long time ago. But what is there to tell about mother Ghana now? They say, we said our country was free forever And yet every day I see her in heavy chains They say, we said, we could manage our own affairs But when last I checked,  The Impossible Mission Fund (IMF) was still in charge. They say, they said, well, isn’t that all we know? The days have gone down in the west;  and now you are old, dear mother. The elderly should recount the good old days.  And the young talk endlessly about dreams,  And castles in the air But what do you t...