Abuja

By Famous Isaacs, Nigeria

PHPTO: www.connectnigeria.com

The pages of this city have their plots summed up

In a strange kind of strangeness.

I mean, I am familiar with the zest and hope that

Fills the hearts and souls of the newly arrived.

And I am familiar with the sad hisses of those

Who have greyed hoping, the timelines of their lives’ bloom

Lost in a kind of maze they cannot explain.

And I am familiar with the calls for patience served

As dinner advices to those losing to despair.

In the haze of the hope that runs wild and free, sometimes,

No to say often,

And the truths behind the loss which we really feel,

And the dawning of the reality that tomorrow is unsure:

There is this spirit that takes us to the metaphysical—

We see the future, and yet we do not see it.

Need I explain the cold that hits you

As you meet your economically established kinsman who

Denies ever coming from the East…

And the betrayal that gazes at him as a man in front of a mirror

As his ID falls face up, and boldly written is:

STATE OF ORIGIN—ABIA.

Ahhhh!!! The fowl’s yansh opening when the wind blows

Is not just a proverb, perhaps.

This shame is strange. Or maybe not so, perhaps;

But one day, these stories will tell themselves.