Vast terrain of
magnolia hills
Spilling itself
like water
Brilliant
bouncing bundles of earth
With patches of
balding mien
Ife city, with
resounding tongues of
Yoruba ancestry
Quaint and
serene milieu
Of mankind’s
birth and deities
Dotted with
playing children
Like sprouting
tendrils in full sway
Fingers dripping
with okra
Mouths dressed
in peppered stew
Huts and mud
houses
With ardor and
aged zest
Tell tales of
history hidden
And shrouded in
distant past
Steeped in myth
and mystery
The city is
asleep
But the men who
walk the transparent night
With spirits,
never sleep
Ife, with
métiers of terracotta
And cotton
cambric too
The farmers with
yams and maize
And bucketfuls
of camaraderie sticking like glue
Atop these magnolia
hills at night
I see reclining
stars
And when I rise
at early morn
It’s halcyon
mist it has
And grey mist
tapered on magnolia
With the
intrepid glow of yellow sun
Is perhaps that
hiatus
Where, in awe my
words are gone
So in this
little place of hills and mountains
Of playing
children and amity
Of stunning
beauty and abundant history
I can dwell for
all eternity
