ONCE UPON A PLANET
(For Earth Day 2024)
The sky above our head is
A ragged umbrella in need of a needle
The rain which leaks through the rupture
Is a cocktail of contending toxins
The cloud up there is a wet blanket
Dripping like a dirge upon a feverish earth
The birds fled several season ago
Without leaving a forwarding address
Prodigal saws have felled the joy
Of flourishing forests
There is a twilight stanza
In the song of the wind
Several seasons ago we sowed the Wind
The Whirlwind is ripe for our heedless reaping
The Earth we used to know
Is once-upon-a-time
Niyi Osundare, Africa’s eminent poet and public intellectual, is an emeritus distinguished Professor of English, University of New Orleans