Fathers



There is a house, half in ruins
At the other end of the village
Battered and ravaged by wind and rain
Half the walls lie prostrate
As in obeisance to an unseen god.
The mud roof has fallen through
The thatch roof cries for a layer
All the timber is rotten with age
And there is no gate or door
To cover the nakedness of that house
If only there was a father to build!
There is a field down yonder
Where thick and tall weeds grow
And strangle the infant crop;
The millet is yellow and dwarfish, 
The corn is stunted and cobless, 
And the cowpea run podless, 
There is no hope for a harvest
All are accounted as forage
No blade to the sward is laid
For there is no father to till!

       
There is a boy and his sister in the city
Their beauty you must look hard to see
Their nostrils run like streams
Their nails are long and black
Flies and all insects go after them
They sleep in sight of the highway
Screeching tires and tooting horns
Their music by day and by night.
Both are pregnant without child!
Their coverings over-sized, and
Dyed with many shades and hues
But cannot cover all their sores.
They tramp the streets, dusk to dawn
For there is no father to provide!

Read: Village Boy Impressions - Unsung Heroines

  
They grow up but slowly
Each to his own devices
He is grimmy and heartless
A terror on that highway
He rapes and plunders for a living
And for herb and gin sold his soul. 
She lies with hounds and men
And bears a child before breasts
Littering the land with fetuses
Whose cries fill the air with dread
But she is long deaf and dead
For there was no father to guide!

       
A mother sits helpless beside
A shack half-eaten by mice
Sorrow and penury has withered
The once glowing dark obsidian skin.
Her sunken eyes no longer beamed 
Her ample bosom is shriveled
Her generous back long wasted
Her slender waist no longer swayed
Her lips are dry and unkissed
Her heart unloved, hips uncaressed
For there is no man, nay, no lover!
To protect that once admired beauty

Father is the sage and the seer
The guide, the guardian, the lover
The hands that make, that build, that till, 
That provide, that protect, that care
The shoulders that carry the load
The pillar upon which we lean 
The first love, the first hero
Who can make a father? 






Comments

  1. Wow!
    What a nice poem!
    It is a truism that the father is very pivotal when it comes to a family's sustainability and progress.
    Thanks very much. I have enjoyed reading it.

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  2. Charlie this is the first time I have read your work and I have gone through some of the others, I must be frank with you, you are doing a great work.Keep it coming Bro

    ReplyDelete
  3. Powerful, fathers are indeed special.

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  4. Another insightful and thought-provoking piece, keep the 🔥 burning

    ReplyDelete
  5. As usual great composition đź‘Ś

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  6. ✌🏽🔥

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wow! That’s a great poem. Thanks for appreciating fathers on this special day. Fathers a rarely given a befitting celebration. Let’s change the status quo

    ReplyDelete
  8. With consummate effect, Agandin always takes us back to Bulsaland. In the mind's eye familiar scenes come vividly alive. Continue to be the voice of our collective thoughts, bro!

    ReplyDelete

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