This Agony Mother Feels by Odeyemi Idowu

Mother was born in the rift of time…
The Elizabethans showed her the way
Took her shoes away,
and left the Catholic Hymns in her mouth.
Mother don’t know “Hymns do good”
But shoes do take you places where barefoot can’t walk through.
Mother thought Hymns are Eagles
Eagles that will lift her above stilettos

Last night in my father’s hot hut
I wrote Zainab my love a poem
This morning, I heard from Hammed who watched it on BBC News
She was butchered along 72 others
exactly when she got to the Benue shore.
Just yesterday morning, we laughed
But today my weeping eyes only remember her smiling face.

Four years ago, it was my sister
Her final exam at Borno was her final day under a roof
The rest of her rests are in Sambisa forest
Father shed tears; mother sang Hymns
Waiting for the Elizabethan Eagle to deliver her daughter into unto her stroked hand
Mother don’t know you and I are the eagle.

So, I ask: for how long will these gruesome people
Of our motherland continue to slaughter the daughters of our land for their mother to see?

This agony of mother, will be felt by all
It will continue as a curse
If you and I continue to sing Hymns without turning Eagles
If you and I do not emancipate from fate and fears
Mother’s agony
will be felt by all.