Remembering December 21, 2001, By Niyi Osundare

BOLA IGE
(Remembering December 21, 2001)

History Never Forgets

And enter the gunmen
one sad and ominous night
murder’s mandate in every bullet

Paymasters waiting in the crook
of night’s arms, eager
for a convoy of corpses

And a rude shot put out the star
in our Christmas sky
and the shepherds lost their way

To the Bethlehem of our re-birth
carols blackened into dirges
seething every line with the anguish of our rage

A pall fell on the yuletide feast
streets emptied into horrified silence
markets wore their stalls like absent belts. . . .

Still we ask:
Where are the fingers that pulled the trigger that night
Where, their paymasters in powerful places?

Waiting, still waiting
The hunchback nation
Cannot hide its burden

Niyi Osundare, one of Africa’s foremost poets and academics, is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of English, University of New Orleans.