{for him…}
Don’t tell anyone
About an anthology of elegies
Written in memory of lost patients
Please, do not tell anyone
That the healing waters now lead to Hades
You must know that the shawls of birth
Now cover the fatal secrets of slain futures
Yet, you must seal your lips
And there’s this particular poem in that collections
That you must not read to anyone.
When the Hippocratic oath
Is taken in hypocrisy
And the lives of men are burnt
To appease the gods of negligence
You must know that
The page of this poem has no number
And it’s title-less too
Also, you may not see the lines of the poem
For the tears of mourning have erased them all
This poem is an elegy of a blank page
Dedicated to a lifeless body
Buried in an unmarked grave
With no shinning marbles nor epitaph.
And if you must read this poem
Be sure that movement betrays your lips
Let no mourning letters escape from your heart
Be sure that your eyes are closed
Lest tears of sorrow expose your grief.
Please, do not read this poem
Near the boy’s mother
Don’t let his father know
That you are reading the elegy of his son
And do not recite it in a gathering
Where his family members sit
Please, this is an elegy that
You must not show his friends
Lest you evoke a confluence
Of killing tears.
[author ]Oredola Ibrahim is the erstwhile Editor-In-Chief of the Union of Campus Journalists, University of Ibadan.[/author]
