Oji River Poem by Chukwuemeka Ezeamalu

Oji River—my town, my river, and my birth place
By your river bank a labouring mother laid in pain
Such a day nursing homes and their painted walls,
Shine too red and grisly to host a Biafran birth
But your blooming flowers and evergreen plants
Striving and swaying to esteem your august guest
As she expels a new soul from her womb to the world
That would eventually be cruel as equally loving to life

The gentle wind whistling between the wavering trees
Blows off her sweating skin to ignite her heart in flame
Fuelled by overflowing joy and hope to conquer fear
By the river lands where crops caved in to infant graves
But, countless fishes you expel at dusk to tend our diner
And as long as thirst, the purest of all water you gave.