Father’s LAND is the HOME OF PEACE by St John Kay (Day 23 of KSR 31 Days of Poetry)

Pour me a glass of home The place where boys become suns Where the dew of my ancestors anoint my soulLong have I woken to strange sunrise in a foreign tongue; The air smells not of fish, wet earth and ogiri; There is no akpu in this terra incognita My feet have long lost the rhythm of igba and ogeneEyes closed, arms outstretched, stroking each/ Native stalk, Lost in familiar fields and farms… I drag the pieces of my soul: &Home comes the wanderer Clad in alien cultureFather’s land is the home of peace— Where men wrestle with idioms & proverbs. Grandpa tells the tales of Ojaadili na Ochiagha Sitting in circles by the moonlightto teach my feet the dance of Ushie and the glory of the night Masquerade for: boys can’t be sons if the land isn’t home

a note on linguistic terminologyOgiri: common foodstuff characterized by its heavy and seemingly putrid stench. Akpu: a starchy meal prepared from cassava, usually consumed in masses of bolus. Igba: a hollow wooden musical instrument common among easterners in Nigeria. Ogene: a musical instrument often times called the gong. Ojaadili na Ochiagha: Literally, translated from the Igbo language, Ojaadili and Ochiagha. Ojaadili is a masquerade in the Igbo culture while Ochiagha is a masked figure representing bellicose masculinity as well as a symbol of/for cultural identity among certain Igbos. Ushie: a local dance common among the Igbos.

ABOUT THE POET St JohnKay, is a Nigerian poet who enjoys the lease of literature. His works have found home with such platforms as Spillwords, and Writers’ Space Magazine. He is the immediate past National Coordinator for the Nigerian chapter of Writers’ Space Africa. When he is neither exercising his philosophical enterprise nor enjoying the natural landscape, then he is sure to either be listening to music or, watching heavens in the eyes of human beings.