Have You Hear From My Father? Poem by John Chizoba Vincent

HAVE YOU HEAR FROM MY FATHER?
Have you hear from my father, okadigbo?
He was among those captured in the oil well
Around the black river of delta in the south.
Days ago they had gone with their hungry
Stomach to get it feed up with oil money
He took the bowls, the kegs, drums and cutlass
With him in the midst of his drunk friends.
They rode on happily along the Asaba road
They eat as they go with their legs dancing
To the beautiful chiping of the insent and the
Croacking of the frog in the forest of Delta.
Once they moved, the vegetables clap their
Hands in appreciation to their bravity.
But they were caught in the midst of their stuidity
By the oil guards who were keeping Watch.
Have you hear any thing about their return?
Would they ever return to Nkporo to harvest
The tended fatted yams in the forest?
Would they ever come back to us?
What has happen to them in Delta?
Talk to me okenwa, the shrine await him
And the half eaten kola nut that he left on the
Table in the main room is still waiting for his
Return to finish up the journey he had begun.
The children he left naked are homesick of
His absence from home among the strong ones
Once upon a time, he told us about oneness
The other time we see him not among us in unity.
He is the last of the strong one in the family
With dignity and respect in the house of symbols.
The town criers have sound their gongs
And the Ikoro had been beaten severally and
No one had seen any them return from Delta.