BLACK BOY IN THE FIELDS – Tajudeen Muadh Akanbi (Day 6 of KSR 31 Days of Poetry)

A child somewhere cries again from a desolate place...

A child somewhere cries again from a desolate place...

Today I see it still—
Dry, wire-thin in sun and dust of the dry months—
Headstone on tiny debris of passionate courage.
—Chinua Achebe,

I swear to god_
I am not a hypocrite, I’m that black
Boy whose father died in cuffs and ankled chains _ whose requiem is sung in forlorn hills.

I am a fighter with words and whistles, fighting waters tendering the tendrils
Of a placid moon. A metaphor of the water to the dead bodies lying helplessly
In these forlorn fields.