Mending My Zeal Poem by Tobi Adebowale

As time flies by
With each passing day
The ice builds up
And spreads sideways
Widening the gulf
Between me and my notes
Long abandoned
To dust gather
As my broken zeal flees
From the crushing ills
Of the broken seats
Its back cushion-bare
On my back printing scars.

Even the fleeting light
Has been put to flight
By agents of misery
Whose dreadful emissary
Consoles me with darkness
Makes a mockery of my candles
In its business
Of filling me with fears
Of imagined creepy djinns.

Though my mind thirsts
Knowledge taps under locks
Break to pieces my zeal
While my thoughts run riots
Over the deliberate neglect
Of the feelings
Of the nation’s youths
And what becomes
Of the nation’s future.

Even if I braced the odds
And picked pieces of my zeal
To mend in the cold
Of long deserted theatres
I’d still wonder what to read
Since for long
Resident surgeons are long gone
To wrestle higher forces
With a clueless umpire watching
Leaving my idle eyes
To feast on the empty pages
Of cold school notes
While I keep tabs on the news.