We Are Walking Without Legs Poem by Olaniyi Adekanye

Even when the moving eyes

Effect their coyness of denial

The watching moon was my witness

The scorching sun also autographed

The sweeping rain left uncertain scars

The scattering wing garnered nothing

From the four-corners



'Don't we have people up there? '

I asked the aging father

The aging breath chorused misery



'we are walking without legs, my child.'

Was after a l-o-n-g l-o-n-g silence

My heart became busy...



'And we climb the ladder without the rungs.'

And my being was still-life



'God wards off the tormenting flies

For the tailless cow.'

That tilted my passive aggression

That He steers the man

And not the people up there