The cloud formed a drizzle of rain on us after a heavy sun swallowed its anger
and like a cripple long informed by the coming of war took to squirrel of disappearance before
his blood becomes what quenches the thirst of the land. Such is how we hurried from the street
not to be baptized by the downpour of rain. The leprous needs not to be cautioned if he can singly co-exist in the forest. we echoed the rumbling rain, got home and emptied the remnant of water
lurking beneath the drum, wind begun to compile armies of papers, horses of nylon, sword of
dust, a form of war tornado, not knowing that not all pregnant clouds are meant to be delivered. After the pin-dropped-silence of the clapping thunder, easing of the swollen clouds, my mother said,
you have become the family of those who echoed roaring cloud and poured water in the drum
away. Rain, sun and wind, do not accommodate themselves precisely to every farmer’s need,
when they do the sailor might suffer it, the rain that heeds for the sea no longer heeds for the
farmer, when the earth and the passage wed the consummation is never complete until there
is grain of earth on the passage. As night covered us in its black blanket, the moon became fed, a
glow from its full stomach filled the earth.
Ariyo Ahmad is a Nigerian poet, from Ogun state. He has poems published on Icefloe press, Brittle paper, Art lounge, Kalahari Review, Rigorous, African Writers, Nymphs publication, words and whispers and numerous others. He was an honorable mention in the Fitrah review contest poetry category (2021), shortlisted for Brigitte Poetry Contest June/ July and the Poetry Editor for Firey Scribe Review. Find him on Twitter @ahmad_akanni.