Tuesday Poem by Ayomide Owoyemi

HOPE

Wherever the heart seeks is home.
Back home we had no hope,
Hope, we hear, lived in a faraway land,
So from Agadez
we journey on the backs of speeding 4x4s,
across desert sands.

In the quest for hope,
Perservance is all we can muster,
Days cross the places where
Hope turns to parched bones,
And green grass to sinking sand,
Hotter days becomes colder nights
Resolve breathes in that 4×4 engine.

Here is Tripoli,
Gateway to hopes ferried on rafts,
A maze of trials,
And snaring slavers,
Laid bare by the despots,
Hope buds in its chaos
Here we traverse purgatorio’s 2nd cycle,
Till we hand out the coin
And moor for Italy,
Tonight.

These coasts bid bye to shuffling feet,
Hurrying from doom to freedom,
Elephants from below the Sahara,
Hopes packed to the rafters,
Crossing to greener pastures.
Claimed first by the sea,
They bloomed as white roses,
Hope now lies
under Salerno