I think he talks about retribution. And again urges folks to beware:

                        You cannot run away

                        You cannot hide away

                        Someone will have to pay

                        When Blood calls for Blood.

DOVE ON DISTANT OAKS (1992). This particular piece is of Colossal Potency and retrospective in treatment and theme. Like the ones just before it, it is an addmonitive poem but differs as a chiefly socio-political comment rather than religious. It bothers on man’s insatiable craving for adjustment and improvement of his status quo ante. (This is especially relevant owing to the untold suffering encountered in Nigeria by the majority in the past two decades ushered by the terribly cabalistic agenda of the military Oligarchy (that is, the melancholy insane elephants) Corruption and all kinds of social vices have since been institutionalized in the country and the rope draws tighter on our hangman’s neck. “Water, water everywhere. And all the boards did shrink. Water, water everywhere. And not a drop to drink!” (The Ancient Mariner – Samuel Coleridge). Now what’s the common man to do? He curses, screams, cheats, kills and lies – to make it whichever way. ( I sorry for Nigeria/Africa – Femi Kuti). This concern, Izzia nurses in this poem:

            People waitin’ for their times to change

            Will rise up to things terrible and strange

            The beast in every man shocks and shames

            And men hide behind masks’ hopin’ to escape blame

            Life displays its wits in senseless practical jokes

            And every furrow must be plowed under the burden

            Of yokes… till the thunder balls begin to fall

            No – one ever heeds the warnin’ call of a

            Dove on Distant oaks.

Beware! Izzia says. Those who engage in vices to change their lot:

                        For every bleached bone on the burnin’ sand

                        A cry is heard all over the land

                        Of a Dove on Distant Oaks.

And the symbolism of the Dove is especially potent as we all know it stands for PEACE, a commodity which occasioned by the signs of the times is gradually enjoying extinction! In our body polity of Nigeria.

                        PURPLE SCENTS OF DAWN (1990)

                        She was up before the mornin’

                        To lead the sun in through the door

                        And the soft laughter of fishermen

                        Washin’ their nets by the shore

                        She claimed the sea for her own

                        And all of its secret dreams

                        And she waited for the purple scents of Dawn

            The woman is the mother-Earth. She is the custodian of the Earth and all that is within it. All causes and effects begin and end with the woman. This Izzia, pin-points lucidly and quite emotionally in the rustic nature of the rural woman who may well qualify to wear this garb perhaps. Better than her urban counterpart (The latter , though still equipped with that essential salt, has lost some grains of innocence to the dazzle of neon-lights and Candour of what the city brings).

            The woman, mothers everybody else, including the man from the cradle to the grave. And beyond when the man has taken the in-eluctible bow and gone. The  men dies and the women carries on with the house and propagated species. Her job is near done. This is piece recordings her fears, wishes, struggles, dreams, frustrations, hopes and aspirations, triumphs e.t.c.

                        She’s known life’s heavier blows

                        She’s felt the sweat break out on her brows

                        Her man and her Son. And as the

                        Evenin’ shadows fell. She knew all will

Be well. For she could tell by the purple scent of dawn.

            In this to say that she executes the world’s task alone? Izzia acknowledges and gives the much important contribution of the man in this as well. His supportive role along with his own deep-rooted struggle are both recorded in the pen-ultimate and last stanza’s.

            … As she faced the wailing wall

            She knew there’s one that walks by her side.

            And old man shakes to the bones

            As he sobs in the arms of a child

            (See, such is the powerful, lucid and terribly disturbing

            Imagery of Izzia’s Poetry!)

            His sacrifice bleeds on the stone

            Yet his dreams for his child have gone wild

            He’d reached the turnin’ point

            But lacked the strength to turn:

            And he cried for the purple scent of Dawn.