"Cursed blessing" by Olajuwon Joseph Olumide

An eve in her prime looks pulchritudinous,

Thus, it births a hydra -

Munched on every mortal lips!

"Lo, a land is green", men chant in rhetoric of its

beauty.

Albeit, beyond their flowery certifications,

Lies the apt enigma, shrouding their yawning avarice

For the opulent endowments on the green shore.

Perhaps, these blessings have attracted but

plunderers!

Not plowers, who infest the land as inhabitants.

Now, the green beams as iconic irony,

Considering the parable of the talents,

Read by men in the scroll of new testament...

For I know of a trifling segment of this cosmos,

Endowed with a few, perhaps one or two;

Yet actualized a complacent development.

Unlike this thwarted holism of the green milieu

Which has clutched unto abundance of wealth.

Yesterday, oil sprung from the desert-crust of Dubia;

Today, heaven winks on the once desert,

For it has metamorphosed into an earthly paradise.

Same liquor of affluence oozes from the green wells,

Hence, it rushes like volcanic eruption to doom our

land:

As the juvenile hearts with bloated rebellious heads,

Clutched unto weapons, far from toys -

Seeking for magical dividends!

Even our elders hath boycotted their native crafts,

I see rusty farm implements: they've gone on long

vacations...

Why? Our myopic drivers guided by unethical minds,

Has lost good stewardship of the copious investments

On the land, entrusted in their hands.

Etched faces of our heroes on our value-dwindling

papers; prostrating before those of foreign lands.

And the green's pulchritudinous countenance

Is now defiled with despondence...

Now, I see the taunting eyes of dawn's stare,

Mocking moribund of our days of grace.

Ah! Barrel of the liquor that intoxicated our minds,

Is now tagged around the globe with reward of a

beggar's plea.

At this, I take a reminisce to my one time dream,

Where from a hilltop faraway, reverberated a voice

Of one despondent prophet amidst us:

"May this oil well of the green land dry up!" He

belched.

Being plunged in such alienated world, I was ignorant

then.

Now, I can decipher via its repercussion!

I hope we trace back to our true blueprint of yore

So that our long sleeping giant in futility

May awake from the green dust of besmirched

pulchritude;

Too cozy for our indolence, trammeling our full

exploration.

Perhaps our deliverance is now from the cursed

blessing,

Perhaps...

Olajuwon Joseph Olumide is a 200-level (ND2) student of Mass communication, School of Liberal Studies, Yaba College of Technology, Yaba, Lagos State.