“Hadduusan qudhaadh jireen, miyaa la qiri lahaa malab –
Who has never tasted bitter, knows not what is sweet” – Somali proverb

the year we cracked out of our skins
blood came oozing out of holes
the body had not formed yet
as if a trauma patient in shock
waiting for the pain to register
needing a ready answer
for when the doctors ask
can you feel what I’m doing to you?
so they can call in emergency aid
diagnose the drought in your belly
declare a famine
and that is how you name a country
that is how you pretend to save it?
this is how we say
if the fighting does not kill us
the escaping will
and if not the escaping
the hunger
and where the hunger colonizes our bodies
wrestles it to the ground
there we will plant new seeds
there we will be rain
panting with our own questions for the soil
o heaven, let our suffering be biblical
let the firstborns die if they must
let the darkness run into its ghosts
o earth, hunger and basmati
taste nothing alike
o earth, there are no lullabies
in a mother’s breasts robbed empty of milk
o earth, declare forgiveness in our mouths
in the bellies of the children
and if there be no water
we will swallow the sea

______

Precious Arinze tweets @TheAddlepate




https://damiajayi.com/2017/07/25/tuesday-poem-by-precious-arinze/

Space booker

Nice one

why nature chooses to bestow abundance to some few and condemn the majority to hunger and penury is way beyond my scope
is Mother Nature biased?
or is she preferential?

OP that ink shall never dry I love this edifice you conjured

If you've not dealt with hunger,you won't know what this post is all about
There is a saying that goes " show me a rich man who has passion to help the poor and I will tell you he was once poor"

Hunger is bad oo..
I remember one day wen I went to school without eating and this lecturer was so strict that you dare not walk out of the class,mehn my tummy started aching me cos of hunger..I couldn't pay attention in class again..my mind was just wondering looking for food,then all off a sudden,I looked up,my classroom ceiling became like cake and the fans rotating looked like loafs of bread!

Nice

Good work

Am not literary sound n cant digest the context of ur versicle....

saintgoogle:
why nature chooses to bestow abundance to some few and condemn the majority to hunger and penury is way beyond my scope
is Mother Nature biased?
or is she preferential?

OP that ink shall never dry I love this edifice you conjured

nature is indifferent. It is what it is

Alexas58:
If you've not dealt with hunger,you won't know what this post is all about
There is a saying that goes " show me a rich man who has passion to help the poor and I will tell you he was once poor"

Hunger is bad oo..
I remember one day wen I went to school without eating and this lecturer was so strict that you dare not walk out of the class,mehn my tummy started aching me cos of hunger..I couldn't pay attention in class again..my mind was just wondering looking for food,then all off a sudden,I looked up,my classroom ceiling became like cake and the fans rotating looked like loafs of bread!

Bro u try sha but u for copy d writeup correctly na!

Nice writeup

kenodrill:


Bro u try sha but u for copy d writeup correctly na!

Guy.. No be copy,real life experience for my year 2..

Nobody can be wise on an empty stomach

YemiDaVinci:
“Hadduusan qudhaadh jireen, miyaa la qiri lahaa malab –
Who has never tasted bitter, knows not what is sweet” – Somali proverb

the year we cracked out of our skins
blood came oozing out of holes
the body had not formed yet
as if a trauma patient in shock
waiting for the pain to register
needing a ready answer
for when the doctors ask
can you feel what I’m doing to you?
so they can call in emergency aid
diagnose the drought in your belly
declare a famine
and that is how you name a country
that is how you pretend to save it?
this is how we say
if the fighting does not kill us
the escaping will
and if not the escaping
the hunger
and where the hunger colonizes our bodies
wrestles it to the ground
there we will plant new seeds
there we will be rain
panting with our own questions for the soil
o heaven, let our suffering be biblical
let the firstborns die if they must
let the darkness run into its ghosts
o earth, hunger and basmati
taste nothing alike
o earth, there are no lullabies
in a mother’s breasts robbed empty of milk
o earth, declare forgiveness in our mouths
in the bellies of the children
and if there be no water
we will swallow the sea

______

Precious Arinze tweets @TheAddlepate




https://damiajayi.com/2017/07/25/tuesday-poem-by-precious-arinze/

And if there be no water
We will swallow the sea

��������

when hunger becomes prayer. a tale of two fates