by Solomon T. Hamza
A lot and If I am to begin this poem with portraits, the first will
reveal the Sahara extending its territory across the Sahelian
region of Africa. Don’t you know that the Earth has lost too
many lungs in trees which has tasted the brunts of a chainsaw?
The air above our heads is a chimney thick with smog, carbon
monoxide and every other toxic gases other than oxygen. That is
to say when someone coughs close to me, I can see a glimpse
of soot in it. In another portrait, intermittent rivers are carting
away with people and properties like a heartless thief. And it
felt as though the world is 99% water. In the 3rd portrait, the
Artic thaws away like parafins tumbling into the tunnel of a
raging fire. And there are polar bears waving & waving. Each
time we visit the seashore, there’s always an ocean tide on the
spot we once built our sandcastles. Don’t you know that even
though climes of the world differs, the changes are the same for
everyone? That each time the Celsius scale pulls up we get drawn
into our own ruins? The last portrait Isn’t really a portrait. It is as
empty as the promises to give up fossil fuels. As empty as a
blank canvas. But this time around, we are the artists gripping
tree seedlings, meditating on the vestiges of clean energy, ready
to repaint our beautiful world where we are not the infernos on
the verge of burning together with it.
Solomon T. Hamza is a Nigerian writer. His works have been published on Brittle Paper, Ice Floe Press, RoadRunner Review, Lumiere Review, Salamander Ink Magazine, Agbowó, Isele Magazine, Afritondo and elsewhere. He tweets @ST_hamza001.