The 8th of August, 2021…
That day!
When a flood of missed calls
From home flowed from my cellphone,
In faraway San Francisco.
I heard the pounding of my heart
Saying, Something has gone wrong.
Then a bold SMS arose, in that flood of missed calls,
Saying, Captain Hosa is dead!
Dead?
Those bold letters out of a flood of missed calls
In faraway San Francisco:
Those words… those swords shot through my heart!
Oh if tears could change those words!
Oh, if wailing could restore his breath!
I ran without a place to go.
I jumped. I sat, confused, empty and sad:
My Epaa, my Capi, my Baba, gone.
Everything, I said, everything has deserted me.
Death has cut down my great iroko!
But, why did you leave me so:
When I was faraway?
Why let the August visitor in, who came to steal?
Who came to maim and to destroy
And to kill my hero for me?
Yet, death, yet you thief:
You could only kill and steal the body,
But, as for the soul of my Capi,
As for that real battle, death,
That is what you have lost!
Oh, death, the soul of my Epaa has won
The long and hard fought war,
It has taken honor at its rightful place!
And you, my Baba, didn’t you come, see and conquer?
Haven’t you even now conquered death?
My gem without duplicate;
Irreplaceable, unforgettable?
And so you shall remain, forever,
My number one hero, my Capi, my Epaa, my Baba
One who, in death, still lives on!
▪︎Dame Julie Okah Donli
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