Poem: with them, not of them

Years of sojourn

Triggered prosperity,

Years of labour

Sparked recognition.

Today unlike yesterday,

You talk, eat, drink

And sleep like them.

Your crude manners

Are fully refined.

Your blindness has

Given way to sight.

Your mental bluntness

After years of lopping

Cuts intellectual snags

Asunder, yes asunder.

You even outclass peers

In that dry cosy enclave.

But all is not well.

II

Your nest hangs loosely

On borrowed branches

When it can be firmed

On branches groomed

By our proud ancestors.

Never assume equity

In that land of inequity.

Strangers are depleting,

Abusing our ancestral

Home and wealth.

Our elite kinsmen have failed.

With strangers they deprive

Our own of their birthright.

So long have we begged

Amid nature’s plenitude.

III

The land needs that skilled

Head and hand of yours.

Your selfless and patriotic

Fervours are vital to defy

External despotic dictates.

Enough of the prolix epistles

That sporadically emerge

To correct the follies of the

Heads that rule our realm

With careless competence.

Your presence is needed

Where your words dim.

You rot where there

Are many of your kind.

Return to where it all

Started for the salvation

Of the helpless remnants.

For you and not them

Can rekindle the dimming

Flame of our dull dignity.

SOURCE: OKOFO-DARTEY SAMUEL E-MAIL: sodesq2000@yahoo.com