by Blessing Omeiza Ojo
My prayers tonight embrace the greens— the grasses,
the trees & the birds on them. I weep for the cashew plant
in our house frontage. Under it, on a bench, I encountered
the coolness of weather even in the blazing heat of the sun.
Look— my skin blisters & I say it’s the sun mocking me.
God, I want to complain: I wasn’t a witness to its death,
on the day pathbreakers came with a tractor, I had gone
to save a river. On the field of play, I see your fairness walking
into night & I conclude— like me, you’re a sufferer of this sin.
At home, I pick my phone to read what the ecosphere tweets,
what the folks are protecting—hashtag this, hashtag that.
I haven’t used twitter for a while & so did not know of its axing.
The bird on it flies to my roof— the trees around me
have all been fallen. Wallahi, I see the name-change
but it’s none of my business. The birds of the heaven
must find a home elsewhere—one is on my roof, another
in my prayers. Imagine that you’re praying, before amen
remember to stand the broken legs of a sapling,
the one pressed to the ground by your sandals & say live.
Black poet and creative writing teacher Blessing Omeiza Ojo lives in a small room, No. 1 Solitude Street, and studying Chemical Engineering at Federal Polytechnic, Nasarawa, Nasarawa State. His poems can be found in The Deadlands, Cọ́n-scìò, Split Lip, Lumiere Review, Ice Floe Press, Last Girls Club, Olney, Trampoline, RoughCut Press and elsewhere. Omeiza is in charge of Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation, Abuja. He takes great delight in leading teen writers to literary festivals/competitions where he has won a lot of laurels with his team. When not writing, he enjoys being a father, playing PES with his son or his friend and brother, GP. He tweets @Blessing_O_Ojo. Check him on Instagram @ink_spiller_1.