OKEIGBO
PEOPLE AND CULTURE
............Tolu’
Elusiyan
Okeigbo! That bush in the hill
That is her popular name,
That is what she’s known for,
Her comic language can make heavy hearts
light
The mother of great people
Kind people they are,
But their minds you cannot know
They are people of tradition
Who can never do without their History
Who can never do without their History
You make good name hear
It follows you for ever
You make bad appellation here
It lingers in the hearts of many
What a place, what a people
Whose welcoming attitude,
Can make an illness healed.
The journey of two royal men,
Of the houses of the Oni of Ife
Derin and Kugbayigbe and other comrades,
Founded it in the midst of the hills
Time has passed away, years have passed
away
But then it has move from where it used
to be
Maybe a bit of influence
By education and innovation
Freshness and newness
Stylishness and inventiveness
And so education now becomes her tools
Igbo-Olodumare acclaimed evil forest
emerged
A forest of doom! Fagunwa exclaimed!!
Long walk to its bosom
First glance was the tortoise,
Bigger than human being
With an old man scary like scape
Dazzled with a hint of cape
Fuzzes like sight of tape
Upon closeness, what I saw bits my
imagination
My imagination becomes illusion
My illusion becomes transformation
The transformation becomes my mission
My mission becomes my task
The task that was never asked
I saw, I felt, I touched and I grasped
All were creative works of art
And maybe they were there in the time of
Fagunwa
But nothing was visible to me
All were creative works of arts
Myth and folklore they were.
Aluku! Aluku!! Aluku!!!
Do not put on your light
Do not work at Night
Do not talk, it’s her time
He or her we do not even know
Mystery they are, is all we know
The owner of the night
Respect his night
Oh Aluku! A mysterious festival
Who’s secretive is enigmatical
Men of fury, manipulating the Spiritual
world
Spirit of bilocation is what we
experienced
Double voice effect cannot be replaced
Abusive words of Aluku are like thorns in
the flesh
So mouthed than that of the parrot
As I journey through exodus
Certain revelations began to unfold
Egungun! Egungun!! Egungun!!!
Also trop in like a chameleon
A cooking pot for the chameleon
Is a cooking pot for the lizard
Long sticks I could see
Pointing sorrowfully towards the sky
It does not come down with reason
But will surely come down to inflict
Unlimited flogging
With passion, aggression and pride
I could see the paradoxes
I could taste the complexities
I could feel the perplexities
Oh Okeigbo people and culture
Histories were made, stories were told
Okeigbo! I am proud to be from you
We are not Okeigbo people
Because we were born in Okeigbo
But we are Okeigbo people
Because Okeigbo was born in us
This poem was composed by TOLULOPE
ELUSIYAN on the 21st of February, 2017
