Green Deserts Poem by Victor Okechukwu Anyaegbuna

Tell me fresh green grass where you grow
as fresh and green on yonder barren deserts,
or rain floods disinfect drought irrigated canals.
I woke up one morning listening
curiously to the sing-song
of energetic little birds
who only yesterday, shortly after sunrise,
hopped and popped so silently,
hungry and dismayed.
Tell me, dear nature’s face;
you, whose fertile course once smiled daily
on sunrise dew, and threatened
an imminent course to blow us all up
with protein and calories
that had begun already.
Now you look so aged, withered and barren.
Were you unknown to me,
I wouldn’t have cared
what became of your succulent youth;
that you just manage to reel on rails
to survive the feed
on silicon, nitrites and dust.

1984
Idi-Araba, Lagos.