By Jude Ndukwe
A conflagration erupts in the Delta
An inferno in the air
Raging in the sea
Endured for decades
Rapidly consuming inhabitants
Fuming death into the skies
And drawing tears from helpless eyes
A conflagration merciless
Blind
Relentless
Ignited by oil merchants
From lands afar
Fuelled by corruption
Egged on in collaboration
With citizens anear
Enchanted by lucre so filthy
Enthralled by crude ornamented
With gold irresistible
To the irresponsible
Coagulated waters
With ceased beautiful waves
Once bluish waters
Now flowing in black oily matter
Skinny and deceased fish
Lifeless, buried in caked waters
An oily matter
Now a fishy matter
Gas of poisonous matter
Diffuses the air
Forcing a downpour
Of soot blackish
Suffocating our fish
In once flourishing aquatic life
Strangulating our people
And native agitators
Who helpless, turn to the ignitors
And soot-rain makers
For compensation not compensating
Enduring the denials and denials
Of industrialists, of captains
Of official collaborators
And of merchants coated in oil so crude
With tummies rotund
Bowels of degradation
Agents of dehydration
And poisoned clouds
And flaring gases
Tempers flaring
Merchants fleeing
To lands afar
Of origin
Heavily divesting
From lands wrecked
Creeks crude-caked
Swamps and mangroves mangled
Plumes of smoke billowing
On brittle trees
Of crippled growth settling
Ornamented with fragile leaves
In unending dizzying dance
Of crestfallen and fallen nature
Burdened by deprivations
Induced still by degradation
They then haul their luggage
Authors of the devastation
Homeward
Leaving the Delta desolate
Jude Ndukwe, an author, essayist, and poet, sent this poem from Abuja (March 21 every year is World Poetry Day)
