Egungun:

When I was in Nigeria

I was told Egunguns were the sort of entities that chased children with their whips

Their bodies sometimes a mass of straw and hay.

No human skin visible to our curious beading eyes.

They moved swiftly, rolling like possessed tumbleweeds 

Their invisible feet barely touching ground

When a child encountered them in the wild

They were supposed to warn the others 

A type of kin sewn out of frozen fear

The kid would scream: 

The Egungun is coming. 

The Egungun is coming.

You better run or he go catch you.

His voice echoing against the earth like a village crier mourning the death of a young king

We would run faster than our skinned brown legs could carry us 

While internally paralyzed on not wanting to be caught by this mask being

Sometimes I would dare to hide behind a tree to catch as glimpse of what lied underneath 

But I was always awe-struck by their elegant garments and masks. 

The fabric adorned on their makeshift skins swam like tiny koi fishes scouring for food in a dark pond

The patterns woven into the fabric telling us stories that our feeble human minds could barely conceptualize 

I never truly saw the nail-covered whips that the other children had cried to me about. 

It made me wonder why they chased us

Stampeding like elephants. 

Did they have a tale to tell us?

Or was it a warning of what’s to come?
Was it just a gesture of beckoning?

A way to possibly share their divine warmth with us.

I continue to stare at their coats in wonder 

While simultaneously wondering if they were truly the monsters to fear?

Still i would hear the shrieks of other children reverbing on the trunk of trees 

and finally pick up my pace 

Right home to solace.

What I didn't realize then was that my powers were concealed by doubts and questions. 

My Egun also lied deep within my bones

Their chants and screams reverbing at the top of a bottomless well

As i continue to sink deeper and deeper into the stark white hands of colonialism

I was an Egungun if i channeled my Egun

My ancestors that have suffered for generations finally seeing Imole

A light that could spark fire on their wet broken staffs

They urged me to wear my bright colored mask and patterned Aso Ebi

To finally twirl and dance like the Egunguns of the past

My feet and theirs concurrently pattering on red clay, making marks that could never be erased.

Egun Mi Egungun ni mi

I can feel your raging energies pulsating in the white crevices of my Egun

Each possessed by your asa Wura

Guiding me to Imole

I will carry out your tasks with this human body until 

My bones are bared naked and exposed

I will earn my garments and masks of divinity

Eventually joining you in Ara Orun with a chant brimming with passion.

Ase                   Ase                                    Ase Ooo

Stripped Bare:

(Inspired by  “The world is a dancing masquerade” Chinua Achebe)

When will we all put our hands up 

and shout out the cries synching 

             with the drum of our hearts?

When will we swing our arms 

like the Egunguns of the past?

Dancing and prying the knots and wrongs of the world away

When will we use our bare hands 

to carve against the restrictive nature 

                    of our ever-changing societies?

When will we free ourselves 

from our bounded bows and lift up our heads high 

                  to meet the blue of the sky?

When will we adorn ourselves 

with our spinning patterned gowns?

   Thus achieving the bargain we struck with our fallen ancestors

ÒYÌNBÓ MAN:

This Oyinbo Man with his skin peeling from the hot stinging rays of my Nigerian Sun

         This Oyinbo man with no claim to the skin stretching around the dullness of his bones

But his dirt-rooted fingernails want claim my dew drop skin

A golden ray of the same sun burning his skin to the mush of tomatoes

This Oyinbo Man with his opaque-like skin don snatch my people from the red clay earth dancing at the bases of their feet

This Oyinbo Man with his ghost pale face who took my Egun to his abyss of a home, stuffing and suffocating them into a black hole

A land also stolen by him now drowning in his filth of  whiteness

The trees and mountains also bleeding and weeping with the bones of our Eguns  

   Their piercing cries vibrating against the core of the earth, creating a crack right in her center

        An unseen tsunami of tainted blood crashing against the white walls of this transparent  man’s vessel

This Oyinbo Man with his clenched fist, invisible whip in hand still flogging my people to this day 

Unhealed scars still fresh like our ancestors wounds

    The red stripes and blackned welts bulging and pulsing beneath our clay brown skin

This Oyinbo who still dey colonize our minds

His bag of shit dredging at the bottom of our stolen hearts

This Oyinbo man who don close our mouths shut

His untruthful words dancing in our ears

  Turning us to mindless zombies 

insisting to take us out of our divine vessels

Well as for me         OBAWURA 

  I no go let this Oyinbo Man still dey conquer and parade me in an auction for gold to his people

Their slimy tongues rolling over their teeth as they view me as their specimen for horrid experiments 

      My eyes don open wide like an owl’s

    My skin don darken with the light of my Asa Wura

The inside of me dey shine bright like an obsidian rock 

          For I don commot this translucent man from the leafy path of my divine journey 

        And I suggest for your own sake you do the same too

              Yemoja:

               The goddess 

that thrives among the fishes

             The ocean

Her womb of tides and joy

  The moon pulsing with the light of her motherly warmth

             Ye mo

    ja  oooooo

Àṣẹ

Oriki fun Oshun:

Òṣun òrè yèyé oooo

Màmi àti Màmá wa

Oní bú òlá

Oní bú ajé

Oní bú òrò

Ají bẹ̀ wẹ̀ wájì mí 

Òṣun yèyé oooo

Ṣe gẹ̀ṣẹ̀ wẹ̀ orí mi àti ẹlẹ́dàá mi sí ire

Àṣẹ   Àṣẹ   Àṣẹ