By Victor Uzodinma Chukwuma
57. Common Men
They cry,
They ask,
They beg,
But to the wind.
They steal.
They cheat,
They fight,
You thrust down jaws of law
You jail them,
You call them fools,
No, they have brains,
That vision colours of rainbow.
It’s the chance they haven’t,
Adopt their spirit with a bronze spoon,
They ask not of silver spoons,
And you will sleep at night.
58. Onumurukwa Wine Tapper
Time knock hard on him,
His body wrinkled with them
That he has gone through
From birth.
Morning brings him here,
Night takes him away,
Not a day misses his tapping songs
All these years from his youth.
All around the confluence
His songs bring food
To the hungry banks
Only birds feed at noon.
Through his hardened palm drips his life,
His caked waist writes
The agony of my people
That is food for thought.
Victor Chukwuma, Professor of Physics, renowned for his immense contribution to the development of Astronomy and Space Science in Nigeria, is a Fellow of the Astronomical Society of Nigeria and the Nigerian Institute of Physics.