I Relish My Okro Poem by Tony Adah

We have refused to eat what nature bestows
We gather and pour into humming machines
And they grind and alter the substance
that our bodies desire and we eat thinking that
modernity is it.
The engine grinds and the metals steal
Into what we eat
A moment, we groan and yawn
Holding our stomachs
Crying that cancer has come
What happened to growing food
the way nature gives its own examples?
Rather than blowing up our crops and
Boasting that we can genetically modify them
And in this way our bodies get punished
for a crime they didn't commit.
I go for organic or I go for nothing else
My chicken roam the meadows
And I give veggies an encouragement to grow
So also are the mushrooms which wear
a crown of beauty in my yard.
As an African I will never be caught
In a web of food from the factory
And food from the farm nature provides.

I enjoy the bitter leaf, scent leaves, hot leaves
And mushrooms perching silently on
dead logs and palm trees, the beans, sesame,
mangoes, pears, guavas and papaya.
I relish my okro
And no matter how tall he grows
I always bend him to take my pods
And the slimy leaves
Recently they said it cures diabetes
And that's the way with what nature offers
It is both food and medicine.