A Plea To My Ogbanje Child Poem by ANTHONY ANIGBATA

Alas! You have treated me bad,
Returnin’ this way, where least
Thou are needed. Leaving and thereafter
Surfacin’ like swinging on a sway
Though thy culture, I can’t but lament
This penchant for me.

At once we knew it’s thou
Unwilling-to-live-child
Comin’ with thy usual scotching sorrow-
For the scars are stubborn
Like you have refused to go
Yet, unlike you have chosen to dwell
And steady-lay, on that part we cut deep

For once do stay, to let this breast rest
Or depart this way, and let her nurse
Only the pure pains of childlessness
Though more painful
Than thine cot death

Do thou ever, this ebb and flow
Tired get? Thro’ the wattle wall
Can thou see our brazen hearts
And tears, and accept our offerin’ as they come:
The bath with warm kernel oil,
The firepot beside thine bamboo bed;
All as we used to
Still on a deaf ear dwell our pleas.

Come child, come and stay
Come and stay long I plea
No longer as a tripper, fall in this way.
The coffin no one deserves
And grave’s a lonely apartment

The dancin’ stars desire
Eyes to welcome their drunken displays
So come, come child;
Come and stay long I plea
Come to father, if this frown for thine mother be
Sleep in my arms, but don’t again
Let thine body get cold.

(to J.P. Clark and Wole Soyinka, who at different times wrote’ Abiku’- a poem I love so much) .