FREEDOM

By Mide Benedict 

To give this purging of heart a Fallopian tube,
With foreshadow, I shall announce its coming.

To the statue of the great thinker man have I spoken, yet more chains
And binds I got, for I have been tied down by my own ways and deeds.

Years ago, I travelled to a village far and old
To seek the words of a shaman, great and bold.

He poured down his cowry and spoke some verses,
But his gods were silent on my quest and hitches.

Then I told him to summon the dead,
Those heroes who made captivity flee in dread.

And with the speed of time, he yielded my tongue
And quickly they came, those living voices that once sang the freedom song.

First was Lincoln, that slavery King,
Who chased slavery out of America with his civil war Sting.

I asked him to show me the way I should trend,
But he shook his head and left me to my questions and end.

In despair and grief I called on Luther
The Black freedom Dreamer

To tell me how I might be free from my bond and chain
But, like Lincoln, he gave me more pain,

And at last I called on Mandela, that apartheid Lord,
Who fought bondage intensely with his freedom Sword

To help me out of this dilemma,
And like the rest of them, he showed the same cinema

Exiting the realm I caught a thought: there was but one I have failed to hallow
Into the questioning roundtable, and OH MINE! I was but that fellow.

I have chained myself to a lover’s debt who I had once vowed amity
Yet chased away without a heart to care or pity.

Now I know, till when I take my words for words,
I will forever remain in this bondage, chains and odds.