Home Grown! ! Poem by Tinuola olaiya

Don’t lead me where u won’t go.
Don’t take me where your eyes won’t follow and your feet won’t see.
Don’t beackon to me in the dark,
among stark un charted paths.

Don’t sail my boat from these shores.
Let me be in this place,
where my feet know and my eyes familiar.
let me drink from this well;
where my mother’s mother drank before me.

Don’t tempt me from these breasts;
that feed me fat and nourish my soul.
Don’t drain me through the channel of too much wisdom turned to dust..
Leave me among these sands that washed my skin at birth;
these streams that feed my drought and pamper my dreams;
these leaves that cover my fears and dress my skin..

Leave me..
let my tongue not be a stranger to the morsel of my childhood words..
let them not be sounds forgotten and words dismissed..
let my hips grow wide!
Let my wrapper not be hung up for too long;
for the cloth that grazes my inner thighs..


leave me...
Let me swallow in the smell of this red earth;
this red earth that colours my feet and charts my way
let me wallow in her rain;
torrents that thrash my skin and wash it clean.
Let me svelte in the sweat of the mid day sun...

Let me dwell in the belly of these ones familiar.
Let my ears not thirst for the words of their soul;
Those words gently spoken;
That no one hears anymore;
because we have all left..