MAKOKO

Listen.

In Makoko, our children

first learn to swim before they walk.

Our ways are not your ways.

When to your pomp mansions you ebb,

our houses are built on air suspended

by staggering stilts: the glorious lagoon

sprawled before us like a harlot.

It is the anthem of murky waters—

it is the sun closing her eyelids as

life—a patient executioner of dreams—

caresses old men.

Lagos laughs to her bloom and we

laugh in the gloom it has cast on us.

We do not close our eyes fully

when we sleep—our eyes are always open

to the gods above like those of an astrologer

investigating a celestial constellation—wait,

change is coming.

The best photograph of our lives

is in the image of a boy and his sister

wading their way to a floating school.

Keep this image. Don’t let it die.

It is hard to believe anything can bloom

here but since there are no graves here,

we refuse to bury our dreams.

We have decided to hold them

tight to the crevices in our hearts

until they are nurtured and old enough to

walk out of this place.

AUTHOR: Othuke Isaac Umukoro, born in Olomoro town within Isoko South Local Government Area of Delta State, Nigeria, West Africa.



SOURCE
https://naijaphilia.com/blog/2023/04/07/naija-poetry-42-makoko/