LETTER TO MY DAUGHTERS


Your brothers knew these lands before you smelt birth; 

Father made sure of that. 

They were also crowned with the home before you came; 

Father's fingerprints.

Your brothers peed at the table before you could sit; 

you know why.


And now you've come, 

to take away from them—

To say that you’re an eagle too.


Their heads won’t nod that soon, my dear. 

The center chair being for you all—including you—

isn’t a tale their throat won’t protest over.


It won't be easy to relinquish 

the euphoria 

they get from being travelers even 

before you heard of the badlands.


When they stand against you, 

To tell you the land is baked beneath 

your sole's temperament, 

don't eat their head.


When they tell you that soaring is for pilots, 

don't forget that you are of the likeness of a mother eagle- 

a woman toying with the wind.


Be nature—

embrace them in the silk of the wind, 

bathe them in the Euphrates. 

Be the mother Nature is…


…until they take her child away.


© Balogun Ayoola Joseph


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