The twenty-one days rain
By Abraham Nwankwo
For twenty-one days it rained non-stop.
Fear, confusion and anxiety all engulfed.
Never happened in Ala clan before;
Neither in life nor in a fairy tale told,
That even in any part of the globe it did.
So, what did the gods with this intend?
None could come out to search for livelihood,
Even fowl and live-stock remained cowed inside.
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The boys could not go to fetch green fodder.
Birds and butterflies were all marooned;
As the sun was overthrown by weeping clouds,
And darkness refused to pass the baton.
Elders could not even assemble to discuss,
What must be done to appease the gods.
In case an abomination had angered them.
Or pour libation to ancestors to intervene,
And save them from the impending chaos,
That the ruptured heavenly bladders did portend.
Ejikem the diviner waited in vain for clients.
Nobody came to read the depths:
To decode the mail from the oracle,
And unload the mind of a burden strange.
The divining pebbles were idle as well.
So heavy was the rain that communication seized.
The rain ended and a basket of puzzles resulted:
Hitherto clearly-marked topography now distorted;
Hills and ant-hills eroded, and yawning valleys filled;
Bowels of granite surfaces, impolite dumb lakes harboured;
River lyi-Ajala was also born, of this pregnant revolt.
And so a clan so old, saw a land so new.
The boundary between two kindreds so unclear became,
Alluvial plain along the river, the bone of contention aflame.
Seven new-yam festivals after the rain, the dispute simmered on.
Then a full war broke out, fifteen new yam festivals after.
Expertise in war-related science and technology developed.
Peace pact! Allied to conquer other lands and a great kingdom formed.
