Green Revolution Poem by Victor Okechukwu Anyaegbuna

Had the grasses ears to hear,
they would starve and bleach in fear.
How their pulseless hearts would bleed,
and green anaemia retard their seed,
as their green blood would spill,
and plant iron in the soil
for the steel rolling mill.

Were the sun so unkind,
and were the pretty flowers not to mind;
with the rains in their slumber
threatening the potty cucumber,
chlorophyll would gravitate
for better colour and taste,
into yams, coco yams and cassava
and stain them green and clear
in their pre-harvest abode,
to fool the white starch eating toad
beneath the farmer’s soil;
a design no Jupiter can foil.

When the farmer shall recount
his honest labour’s fruit,
his cold tears cannot bleach
all the harvest starch.
Of the leaves he shall make tea;
straw and amber shall then be,
the colour of our nation,
and the cone less evidence of our action.

It would take a grain of corn
eight crawling years to wean,
another eight to starch its seed,
and a tyrant’s age to meet our need.
Carrots would grow on Naira notes,
while African spinach and lettuce
would thrive on foreign exchange,
from landlords’ lawns to the range.
Tomatoes, garden egg and pepper
would feed and burst on propaganda,
while citizens feed fat and tall on fertilizers,
and drink of the overflowing dams.

Tractors and caterpillars,
elegant and modern farmers,
would plant yams and cocoa
in Abakaliki and Gboko,
while peasant hoes
and the curved cutting knives
shall find their restful places
in the museum and archives.

Soon shall rice begin to rape yams
to exterminate and milk their sweetness
and the bean coil and entangle
the cow’s legs and tail.

The grasses would become herbivorous
and apples float like soap bubbles
knocking down hawks and kites.
Onions shall stand on their heads
and knock from door to doors,
and our mothers’ kitchens and chores
shall become of Indian palaces.
When oranges begin to fall from the rock,
and children begin to suck and duck;
more of them shall be made hour by hour,
as women smiling and merrying in labour

shall deliver pots of food and wine
for the masses to drink and dine.

Had the grasses ears to hear
all this, and the guts to dare
half of them, indeed the rest
would have dried in protest.


1983.
Idi-Araba, Lagos.