How I Painted Colours – A Poem by John Owen Adimike, Nigeria

I

From Grandpa,

I learnt to give water to

Thirsty hopes;

These words are for the bruised soul

Whose dreams are strangled in the wind,

Astray in an aging petal.

II

Mother showed me how to paint colours on wrinkled flowers

And I arrived to the silence of senile autumn

Harvesting lost vigour and life

The vigour of our iron bodies that became food

For children like me,

Or chaff mixed with prophecies of our forefathers,

To use in making bright colours

For the souls that had forgotten

What it means to breathe.

III

From the mountain of Grandpa’s memories,

I steal aborted songs that were never sung

Planted them in the throats of withered souls,

Watering them with the taste of living…

I watched them grow into

A nation with the anthem we fed our tongues

So that our voices may learn to sing.

IV

For this nation wears the colour of souls that taught us to live;

The children of this nation fulfil the prophecies of old

Florae painted in the bouquet of spring

Because grandpa taught us to paint colours,

On the petals of our wrinkled flowers.

Read – I am Power – A Poem by Olatunji Zion, Nigeria