By Alfred Olaiya

Why are you gloomy?
Tell me of your grief.
Why sit you here,caged?
Your wings are broken
Like crushed stems.
And your mouth is bruised
Daggered by oppression.
Now your tongue can’t weave a sweet song
As of old.

I see your yokes
Everywhere;
By the lone river,
By the hallways and chambers.
I hear your cry, amidst your lesions,
To passers-by
Who break their toes on hardened earth.
They trooped on with deaf ears.
With reckless heads into lurking doom.

Ayékòótó,
You cry but no one listens.
Here you are behind wall of darkness,
Pinioned,
Wallowing in solitude.

But your cracked voice
Never ceases.
It swims through the wave
And hits the wall:
Wall of darkness
Which seems to be the only one
Listening,
Listening to your cries.

Ayékòótó is the Yoruba name for parrrot.