Letter To The Real Mothers Poem by David Olusanya

Mothers of my land,
would you idle your hands?
And watch your grace
to be tossed away like the days.

Would you only grumble?
And watch your walls crumble.
Would you stare at the sky for hope to tumble?
And pat your unruly urchins to fumble.

Would you cry like the crows?
And wither away your brows.
Would you sadden your soul?
And ashen yourselves from crown to sole.

Would you chase the rags of time?
That you call fashion of the prime.
And give your beauty bit by bit,
to the whims of foreign wit.

Mothers of my soil,
enshroud not your toil.
Let the world know your heart yet lingers,
to give not your blood-won soil to strangers.


Your voices are full of valor.
So great and so galore.
Awake at the instant,
ere your sons be flown to deserts- so unpleasant.

Mothers of my mothers,
Mother of my fathers,
Mothers of my brothers,
Mothers of my sisters.

They have spat at your face,
they say you have no more place.
Would you sit and idle?
And leave your infants bereft a cradle.

Arise mothers of Africa!
Arise mothers of Nigeria!
Arise before the dawn!
Ere your children shall all to death be done!

David O. Olusanya