For Nigeria: Meditations (Prologue) Poem by Chinyelu Agwu

Let my pen flow in this lyrical trilogy
Herein I croon at the dazzling skies
That spread like folds of rich purple linen above our feeble roofs
In this moment
Moments as wild as a jungle-like temperature
Yet the living remains within the borders of sanity
And keep the core of existence
As it is everywhere the sun rises.

The river of our past flows steadily into our minds
The wounds of the past stab us in the face with their scars
And weave our tongues with endless tales
Of 'It can never be
Because once upon a time we fell
And were not repaired.'

But herein I croon that it's no fantasy
That the wounded has long been repaired
Even though dead scars wish to take on life
Against us;
Even though some may no longer know
What it means to fight for home
Against the scars.

I croon
That we can dream and work out the dreams
Because the ancient keepers of all that can never be taken away from us,
All that we today own,
Did not teach that we can remain asleep on the grass mattresses
While the labour is on.