SELF PORTRAIT AS A STRANGER IN FATHERLAND// Poem by Wisdom Avaungwa Jemgbagh

 

I wish to squeeze myself back to fatherland 

Where I can delightedly show my laughter 

For he has travelled through hells for me 

That I may survive in the fierce eyes of foes.

Even when I was a labourer in the captivity of foreigners 

He held his hope, substaining it with an ocean of sweat 

From his toiling body, so our dignity may never die.

Behold! The giant beauty of our land 

The most blessed and giant King of blacks 

Your labour feeds the mouths of different nations 

And the eyes of wickedness are never off you 

Yet with your braveness and boldness you never lay low 

That I may extend your linage and your might will reign forever.

A heavy flood occurs in my heart whenever I watch your 

Offsprings gradually disposing your legacy which they call archaic

As they now run after the teachings of a white-skin man leaving our 

Ancestral echoing voices to fade away into the fields of lost things.

I am fed up of sons who know not the route that drives home

Am fed up of being a stranger even in my own fatherland

Where brothers have allowed guns to control our homes

Yet I am scared to utter a word else I get a bullet planted in my skin

Alas, I feel the pains of a poor poet whose pen's ink is but a replica

Of the tears and blood drowning our land into bottomless depths

Say, in every poem, I die and live again only waiting for this land to heal.

©️ Wisdom Avaungwa Jemgbagh

Wisdom Avaungwa Jemgbagh is young Nigerian writer who resides in Jalingo, Taraba State. He is poet and storyteller, a member of Hilltop creative arts foundation, a student of best Helina Heritage and a member of The Newborn poets. He can be reached on Facebook@ Avaungwa Wisdom Jemgbagh.