Lamentation Of The Black Girl Child Poem by David Olusanya

'I am that African girl child,
whom you've left in the forests' wild.
While you darling to mourn my death,
as my dreams fade, breath by breath.

Was I not born with body and soul?
That I'm treated as half the whole.
Was I not to be bred with bliss and beauty?
Rather than penury, pain and cruelty.

Oh! Poor sublime soul of mine,
When shall you too be free and fine?
When shall I sail through sorrow's deep?
Having no more cause to sob and weep.

I shall yet bless the human race,
whom even has deprived me of divine grace.
For what is my pride as a mother,
if I curse my child for his blunder?

Awake, and salvage this searing truth;
That if you toss around, blight and brute,
then you must know this, straight and sound;
That what goes around comes around.


Soberly take this bread of life,
as it comes through your chosen baker.
For you know not if his wife,
also lies in the black girls' danger.'

David O. Olusanya