Who Fails Us Mother Or Father? Poem by Babajide Aina

Our mother has failed us
The estate of our father is in ruin
The identity is taken away
The pride, the name and the history
Ask your mother where is my father's culture
The identity of the ages
Ask your mother where my father's values
The honour that the nobles and the king's respect
My accent is tarnished the identity of my lineage
My name is twisted as become foreign pronunciation
Olumide has become olumideeer
Oko, my husband, the king as become Bae
We have left the identity in our name to the foreign name
Where are we as our journey back home is far
No backing of the child to the back any more
Adire is taken over by the Chinese
Ankara is called local
My father's house cognomen is change to Marcus
A name that has no bearing with my destiny
Where is my happiness, my joy
If l was confidence my father's stories would have been told,
Now their father's stories reign
Where is the leaders of my father's compound
Where are the kings' makers
The elders
To call my mother and ask why
Can the estate be savage
Her daughter the pride of matriachy
Has opened the pudendum
To the naked eye
Can a treasure be found in an open field?
In all, my father, my father why?
You have failed me
But can l still has the responsibility, is...
Babajide Aina.

Written 0n 2nd April,2025(wednesday)