I dream of peace
Carry me
Oh winds of songs
Let me fly into a forest of thousand seasons
where
Pigeons sizzle and doves drink
from the gourd of plenty rains
Where all naked men
devour the iron eyes of thunders
I want to visit that continent
where women’s smiles do not end
from the crack of morning’s insects
to tattered moons of night.
when widows bathe
with many unbroken songs,
their waists twirling, twirling, twirling
and no steel padlock
is clamped on their lips
There are some tribes, where
griefs do not wear the faces of children
There are some distant lands
where girls look into mirror and see no scars
of memory’s wallop.
on their cheeks
where sorrows flatten
with the growth of years
where hot memories become ashes
Let the world weave a new dance,
dream a new dream,
wear a new song,
Let the world dream of peace,
I want to be of this world.
———–
Homage
To all children who smile with rotten lips
insensate
to the memories of wine and strawberries
To all mothers whose bodies are rivers of stretching anguish
I pay my homage to you
May you harvest gold from the generous teeth of earth
May your sleeping dreams become ripe with the sun
To the girls whose silences are betrayed
hands tethered
mouth smothered
legs flung
brutally
apart
justice proscribed
May you find moonlight in this terrace of darkness.
———–
Poetry (c) Kehinde Adedeji
Image by jplenio from Pixabay