Why is your coming so constant
To Amaozalla? Your approach, less distant
Nigh to us, your faces are unpleasant,
The rich for money you beg with a chant.
Nmaun, with tipple you've sozzled
You become stronger but puzzled
Run faster but never dawdled
And like a rabbit never stumbled.
About the village, you vigorously run
Covering your nakedness with fronds and thorn
Chasing your shadows in the noonday sun
The children clap and tease you for fun.
"You're ancestors" indegenes believe,
"You're lazy youths" that's our belief.
Stay for nine months and leave,
So there will be no more chant on the chief.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Reading this reminds me of the masquarade that Chinua Achebe narrated in him novel Arrow of God. Least of all, it reminds me of the long unsettled arguements about whether masquarades are truely 'ancestors' or merely 'lazy youths'. Thanks for this. Keep writing.