Read Time:1 Minute, 25 Second
Scene: The Lonely Lodge-Compound of A Corper The ground is littered with blades of grass: an assortment of lush greenery and the aged brownness. Some birds silently pecking on chips that defile human eye logic. Some birds on the twigs metres away chirping noisily--as if--in the mischief of blowing alarms out of envy against the ones pecking ashore. The shutter lifts, oblivious of the crooked oak from whose boughs slouched the tired leaves scattered on shore. In between the leaves recuperating on the boughs, serrating the pure backdrop of the firmaments, the gossiping birds hop from one twig to another flailing at the deaf world that won't oblige. But the ashore birds peck on still. And a god with a quill is wrapping up the moment of a life scoped in a fenced Lodge. Fences encasing this miniscule of a life. And the breeze pats his shirtless epidermis layers wearing the earth colour. The pat, he muses, is an assurance from God above when He says well done; as you capture the moment. Silence predominates. All of this in this orchard still could not float this lonely heart drowning in the nostalgia of home.
Olajuwon Joseph Olumide is an award-winning Nigerian author, English Language instructor and musician. He holds a degree in Mass Communication and has works published on several platforms including Minute Magazine, PIN Journal, Words Rhymes &Rhythm, Etn 21, African Writers Reviews, and Arts Lounge. Olajuwon, a winner of the Brigitte Poirson Poetry Contest in 2015, 2016 and 2018, is the author of Walking the Pathway of Excellence (self-help, 2020) and Beyond our Dreams (poetry, 2020). He lives in Ogun State.
