In The Wee Hours Of The Morning. Poem by Tony Adah

In The Wee Hours Of The Morning.



In the wee hours of the morning
They woke us like we have slept off
Our duty of watching the night
We rubbed off smudges from slow opening eyes
The road to the stream is still tainted with stars
A bowl on our heads and crickets chirping
their last bouts of songs
Our shins would fetch the dews
dripping down to the ground
Soon we are back home with a pool
of water in a big bowl
A broom in our hands
giving our compound a clean shave of sweeping.
The stale cocoyam foo - too is ready
And the gulps lead some steps to school
No shoes, no bags but a black slate
and flakes of dried casava chips for chalk
Trekking and singing rhymes of the other day.
Over and over the school is over
We have a duty to fulfil
Scavenge the bush and fetch mushrooms
Or take hook, line and sinker to the stream
And a tilapia and mudfish pant in the bag
To season the sauces for dinner
And remain some, the stale part
for the school breakfast
Or follow them to the farm and roast yams
And dip in peppered palm oil.
There was no car, no bicycle, no milk
no soap, no pomade
That was then
Now there's milk and everything
But the brain!

Monday, September 14, 2015
Topic(s) of this poem: memory
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