Ilepa Poem by Tosin Abegunde

ILEPA

In anguish, the forest trees wag their heads,
While the market lettuce take ill like sick herds.
Climate consoles the weather groaning in pain,
As the sun tends the moon to wail not again:
All mourning the darted comet.

This heralds silence engulfing the market place
With erosion of tears flooding infants' grimace
A tale which makes the strong, like water lily, falter
On a bad day devil drank water:
When a mammoth falls to a standstill.

A home has just collapsed!
A pillar like collarbone, has quenched
The SAN: Senior Abiyamo of Nigeria is gone
Like a vanished smoke in the mouth of a gun:
Indeed, an irreplaceable incisor is forced out!

Quintessential queen of Sheba departs for good
Like a lost sheep in a thick forest seeking food
Till the sunrises again, keep cool in the full foam
Sleep on, sleep on eternally in this new home
Where we hear you loudly only in fantasy:

A home we'd all one day see in glory;
Hallucinatory boulevard of mystery
Where pains no longer reach one;
A home of where many a wo-man be adorn'd
With medals written with His very own hand.

Gone too soon O giant impeccable,
So great a counsellor irreplaceable
Whose scolds uphold me like prophet.
Had the world beyond been market,
I'd have seen you off hastily.

How Asarailu hastens man away for good:
Leaving behind the bad; taking the good.
As you set out on this journey,
May your yard never be weedy
As your testimonials bloom where planted.

A deceased with seeds is dignified
Just as this mother in a million is defined.
Dear mother rest in perfect peace,
Nurture us, in the spirit world with ease
Till we meet to part no more.