The Sole Search Of Our Soul Poem by Aziz Baako

Like a Remain, I perched by a riverbank,
Close to a blustering class room
Taking the breeze
On a February first, seventeen
Hundred GMT.

Intellectualizing deep about
The reasons the black man is
Far away from himself

Terns took my attention,
This migrant birds sliced
Deep into the skies.
And reminded
Me about news I heard
On radio earlier that day
About a group of black youth
Who died walking the deserts
Of North Africa,
Struggling to enter Europe.

Then in a sudden I heard
A teacher reading
To the children in the classroom
Near where I perch
Still intellectualizing.

It broke my concentration but its worth
Listening to;

“Ben Franklin seventeen fifty four dream;
Drawing of the severed snake that called for unity
Among the colonies who with the British
Confronted France in the French and Indian war.”

“Before the war of seventeen seventy…”

Here in Africa
Our minors know more Western history than theirs,
They are more Western than the Westerner.
Could it be the reason our youth
Are struggling to migrate even on foot
To Europe and America? A thought crossed.

The Terns' circle the gray skies
Again and again
And took my attention once again.
I gain back my concentration
And came up with the answer,

Until a man learns about what
Befell him yesterday
He will not be able to walk
His tomorrow.

This I am sure it applies
To everybody sole
Searching the soul

We will have to find ourselves
To see our God. Amen