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Plaudit to my past
1.
To the one who beckoned and they followed
Who himself went and saw land and sea
A fortnight before he called them out,
To join in that long stride,
Past mounds and heaps,
Past thickets of unfriendly vast growths
Past other lives they could have lived,
Through the deep alleys of the mud gong,
A thread to find my clan.
2.
My clan, founded at the tip of the land
Peopled by hard fighting men and women
Still forging on with your ideals.
Four hundred years after you marched,
To the man who beckoned and they followed.
I, who ascended deep into the depths,
To call you up again,
I, born in the eight generation
Of the fourth man who stooped
To sidestep that leaf that kills mother and kills daughter,
Whose slash cut off strength from the Mamba
That lay across your path,
And so clear looming evil off your way.
I, valiant among the valiant,
Call out to you and say greetings.
3.
Greetings Mbaba,
Man of double strength
Who engaged all our first obstacles.
At the junction of the bread fruit,
The vastness of virgin forests,
Undisturbed refulgent foliage,
Opened endlessly before you.
As you gazed around with your followers,
A thick black mist threw itself over you,
Your followers were blinded as you wrestled the night and won.
And the brother of night cast a spell on your followers,
Then he boasted:
I am twilight, I sit before night sits,
I am neither night nor day:
Mbaba, you seized twilight,
Ready to fling him off the land of men,
But his prestidigitation aided him time and again.
He flung himself at you for the seventh time,
And you seized him fast,
Hurling him into the laps of sobbing night.
You triumphed over day, over sunlight and rainfall,
And set up a laurel for all time.
I, Odengalasi,
Who ascended into the depths,
And returned, elevated, speaking words beyond knowing,
With my whole head smoking fire,
With serpents, scorpions and evil beasts fleeing at my approach,
With the sun shining bright on my path,
And the rain stopping, right above my head,
With that rainbow arching into my chest,
I stop to remember my past,
As I stand fast to give you this plaudit.
4
Plaudit, for so it must be,
To you first Mbaba my ancestor who led the march,
To you Okereke, son of Mbaba
To you Odimba, son of Okereke
To you Ahuwa, son of Odimba
To you Nwaekpe, son of Ahuwa
To you Nmereke, son of Nwaekpe
To you Onyebu, son of Nmereke
Receive it from me,
Your son and your brother,
Uzoma son of Onyebu Nwaekpe,
For one must remember.
