A most haunting Poem

 I'm Bound to this Land by Blood

By Olu Oguibe I am bound to this land by blood That's why my vision is blurred I am rooted in its soil And its streams flood my veins I smell the sweat of its men And the million feet that plod The dust of its streets Leave their prints on my soul I have walked the footpaths of this land Climbed the snake-routes of its hills I have known the heat of its noon And that in the fields where men toil till dusk I have known the faces their creases I have seen pain engraved on the foreheads of many I have heard their agony I have cried so often with broken men And peered into a million faces blank Faces without bodies bodies without faces The owners of nothing breakers of stone The owners who are owned I have known them all I have heard the wailing of a million I have stood in the crowd where men Mixed their sweat and wiped blood From their brows cursing silently I have stood in the middle of silent whirlwinds And their heat has left its mark I bear the mark of the masses on my brow And if I curse If I raise this single voice In the midst of dust and curse If I lend a tiny voice to The rustle of this crowd It's because I am bound to this land I am bound to the dying mother the widow The man with a weight on his loins I am tethered to their moan they are my own I belong with they who have no voice They who trudge outside the gate Those who sigh in their hearts Who only shake their heads And if I sing not of roses and rivers It's because I see rivers of blood I look through the holler of the crowd And I see blood on the ground I see blood on the rockslabs I look over the mangrove swamp And I walk through fields of groundnut And I see nothing but blood I see blood in the face of the farmer On the palm of the school child I see blood on the statue Of the Immaculate Mother I walk through the streets and I see puddles of blood I see blood on your shoes on your underwear I see blood on the hands of men And if I raise my voice to holler It is because the grasses wither in this deluge of blood Fishes float on their bellies with their eyes covered By the sanguine flood My verse spreads ungathered In this spill of purple Mine is the cry of a ram tethered To the slaughterslab There are no petals soft No yellow centres No polished pebble melodies Piled into song My words are rough-hewn from These rocks where men toil The plaintive voices of children The plod of prisoners feet The curses of the peasant woman Are the wattle of my song My pictures are the colour of dust And I sing only of rust I have swum in the flood And I know better For I am bound to this land By blood.