Am African Poem by Anugo J. Edoka

I am the flesh that barricades the wild spirit of nature
From hills and huts, of ancestors to continue a lineage
I belong to the soils, a master piece, the gods' very own measure
I speak to the trees, aware of the spirits, mine is a divine linkage.

I am of customs, of traditions to preserve the very essence of life
In rituals and rites have my soul been forged
Am a warrior
Am a hunter
Am a herbalist
Am a god's priest
Am the son
I am the daughter
Representing a land like a sea unto which all wish to dive.

I am not black, but I can be defined by beauty's colour
Through my blood flows the pain of some disturbed past
For in remembering my past do I do my future honour
I survive for I am the land upon which slavery saw its last.

I am a legion, like a million ant with a thousand tongue
Am a people entrenched with tribes numbers fear to count
I am the river that transits the souls of the mortal song
Am the shoulders upon which great many heads mount.

Am of facial marks and mortal wounds
Call me ugly for all you care, you may never again witness the beauty;
In crawling on hot baked mud in toddling days
In hunting beasts that ravaged half of our animal farm
In climbing the iroko on bare foot and naked palm
In unaided tussle and utter manual labour.

I walk through caves leaving traces for generations unborn
Forest to forest lies my unflinching strength to explore;
The powers of nature as can leave a foreigner undone
And staunchly daunting quests he dares not endure.

I am the roaring lion in the fields
The skittering legs of the hill antelopes
The colobus monkey with the venom of a green mamba
The perceptible ghosts of the unruffled but abysmal Niger
Through the hot plains of the Sahara to the vegetation of the savanna
Am from slopes and lakes to the deserts and valleys
From the pyramids to the climbing phases of the Kilimanjaro.

I was born African
Am a beast from the evil forests of Zanzibar
With sweat rolling down my cheek under the merciless sun
I resist, sneering at challenges for uncultured is my culture
When I go north, I go as Africa
If I die, let the women do the surugede dance
Let our young cavalcade in masks and masquerades
For all I am is nothing but extraordinarily, African.