Benue

This is a poem from a son of the soil
One whose root is found in you
I see our farmlands are turned into Abatour and our streets flooded with blood.

Mother used to dream of a benue where strangers can feel at home but this home is no longer safe for
her own..
She caries the portrait of a dead father, a dead mother, a dead brother and a dead sister.

They say this gun men are men with unknown faces but what destroys the beans lives inside the beans

Goma, buruku, kasi-nala, konshisha, Vande Ikya, Otupko
These rivers in our cities are not white enough to wash away the pains of the killing because they are
not the blood of Jesus
But through the high and the low we can trust in Jesus.

Tiv, Etulo, Idoma, Igede, Jukun,
I see we keep looking to the government as god’s over the nation, what if the government is sick?
So this is not a time to cry alone, it’s a time to unite, it’s a time to stand on each other’s shoulder,
this is not a time to be separated by our tribe marks, it’s a time to collectively stand and mark the end of
injustice.
This is not a time to trust in man but a time to look unto Jesus for in him alone our victory is assured.

© Gabriel Dkings