Some night on the front veranda
Odede-meh cuddles me to her bosom
And tell me our stories
She told me about herself
The cassava girl in cassava plot
The sugarcane girl singing happy song
Of Esan lore in the cotton plot
A whole heart full of such stories
Just as her life with me were full
Becoming more vivid in her story
As the images mingle themselves softly
In the sing-song voice of odede-meh
Sometimes to control my waywardness
(As I learned at later age)
Odede-meh tells fearful stories
Black as that night was black
She told me fearful stories
Black as the depth of my Africa
She told me true stories
Not gotten from any book
Stories as true as her life is true
And of her great grandfather
The mighty Negro cotton picker
She told me about her childhood
And of selling her scanty wares
Of the wizened old medicine man
That circumcised her sugar…
Odede-meh has a whole heart full of such stories
Some night on the front veranda
Odede-meh cuddles me to her bosom
And tell me such stories
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