Agoloso Presents - Atondido Stories Agoloso Presents - Mama Mada | Page 268

Mama Mada
My Countryside
by To p e Ak ered o lu
(Where old misty mountains adorn the sphere, competing
with the sky in height and glory and boisterous antelopes race and hide
behind the shrubs from Ogún’s 1 intrusion)
My countryside
Where unruly old vultures scavenge on hot excrement
Threatening even the carriers
Of the meal, the happy children
Pouring out yesterday’s fill
My countryside
Where men sit under odo’s 2 shade
Filling and refilling calabashes
Bantering about wine and women
With ope 3 and ̣ọ̣́ta 4 patting
Olópón 5 and her kids for a blaze of the night’s glory
My countryside
Where the cowherd in his tattered silk
Returns home to hurray! of happy children
Frolicking in the moonlight night; attending
elders say; when I was your age
Now my countryside
Where one cannot tell the difference between
A horn and a hummingbird
For hunters now hunt in sight of the horn
Bring their spoils in exchange for a seat under the blue light.
——–
Ogún 1 is a Yoruba god of war and metal;
Odo 2 is a mythical tree in the Ondo north mountain side;
Ope 3 is the loser in an Ayo duel
Ota 4 is the winning opposite in an Ayo duel
Olópón 5 is the many houses (children) that Ayo literally possesses.
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