To the Fallen Innocent

Tell them you too are innocent, sad fallen innocent who shook parting
Hands with life. Here are your fine funeral flowers flying
In the wind.
I know you hear me deep down there in the bowels of sorrow,
In the jaws of death.
You hear me in the heart of the inferno.
Tell them that went before that we no longer laugh.
How would we laugh when all we hear
Is the groans of pain?
Tell them that it is the lonely mole that has no hole
That gets crushed.

Tell them you too are innocent, sad fallen innocent
Lying in peace among the lilies and nieces, tearful nieces
Tell them that have gone before
The streets that bustled like a beehive
Are now a grave graveyard.
Tell them that when the muzzles stop stuttering,
All we hear is the echo
Of our mourning, the sniffles of widows and
The orphan sobs of loss.
Tell them that little girls no longer play hopscotch:
How would they play when
Heads and hands have fallen where
They marked their victory counts.

I know you hear me. Tell them that have gone before
That the cycle has run too
Fast, fretfully fast from dust to dust.
Tell them that out there, dark clouds of sorrow
Are casting doubts on our brows. Tell them our faces
Have aged and there are no dimples on
Our cheeks, only hard lines begging shelter and food and water.
We have no dimples;
How can we smile, when our farms are
Battlegrounds and deserts?

But tell them that amid the stuttering muzzles
The missing hopscotch and shattered maize
The guiltless are caught in a hazardous maze
Tell them you too are innocent, sad fallen innocent lain here in sorrow
Where weeds grew, now your flowers grow- fine funeral flowers flying
In the wind.

Rudolf Ngwa Akongoh
(For my new collection) please SHARE