A Pedigree of Me

Hundreds of moons saw me in silence,

Echoed past my shadow that

Blurred the reflection of the past.

And I sang that song again. Again.

Of what slammed my lips

To forget these ancestral chains.

My voice like shallow water

Running over stones

Babbled into the fog of reality.

Went pleading to tear my reminiscence

Off the Zik of Africa,

Off Balewa,

Off Awolowo,

The forebears, who remind me

Of my provenance.

But the burden of my breed begs

My conscience for clearness.

“I was a hero from birth

And my christening was

A collocation of cultures.”

So I long to walk back to that

Simple anchorage of freedom.

Long to rise singing. Again.

Of a history left to wander

In the mouths of strangers.

Of a memory fading like

The skin of a grizzled gecko.

SHE had lived (it was I),

To carve an image of me.

Left her bloom in the past.

So, back I peered. Dig,

To make it real again.

That’s my pedigree.

—–
Poem: Clement Abayomi
Image: Lynn Greyling Pixabay remixed