During Festivity, We Find Mix'D Feelings Poem by Eche Ononukwe

n this moment time,

come we with top joy,

dancing and drinking with our heart in joy

travelling and trekking to the village,

visiting long forgott’n ancestors

once seen in a half-roof’d-thatch’d hut

infect’d with stubborn termites and rat.



At this festive time,

in our hard time,

ent’r we into this wide weeping market:

front and back, like a mouth basket,

allowing all buyers and sellers;

inside, like busy bees in their hive.

engaging in business;

then come the thieves,

engaging in their own business,

pick pocketing our deaf purses

also blinding and butchering our skin

leaving us crazy and empty

like the womb of a barren woman

‘My purse, by breast, my private, my eyes! ’

We cry all day long to the Mother Sky

before many heads come to hear our rhyme.