The Nigerian Heart

An uncharted sea is the Nigerian heart.

Enterprising hope ripples its adamant surface,

Undried by economic harmattan,

As leaders lie, as children cry, as elders die.

The sea's will, honed on adversity, becomes

A sword of incentive to the insouciant hydra,

Growing faster to swallow the ways. The sea stops,

But not for long—it will find yet other ways

To reach the distant ocean.

Past blindfolds, gags, and bloody guns,

Through stultifying nets of native democracy,

Beneath the raging potbelly of Pain's cabal,

The Nigerian heart will make its way.

The sea cannot be chained.

©Shalom