The Hippo Overturned Our Canoe

(Tribute to Professor Kofi Nyiᶑeʋu Awoonor)

Nyiᶑeʋu meᶑea keʋu o

The hippo does not overturn
The canoe with sandload

Nyiᶑewu meᶑea keʋu o

This hippo overturned it
This hippo overturned it

We are the snake
Whose head Al-Shabab caught
We only wag our tails defenseless
The hippo overturned our canoe
But never it’s content
For the sand is too HEAVY to sink
Your voice, too loud to sink

In this corner of our common fate
Fire in a neighbour’s farm
Consumes all farm-huts
A dirge from a distant drum
Splits the tear-bag in our brains
The blast of toy-guns
Mold fireballs, dispersed across all souls

Indeed, yours is a great journey
So let not the children mourn
The transition of a pathfinder
And his voice, the path-adder

Rather
Let monuments rise
Lift up the anthems
Sound is mother to words

And let the great ancestor
March on into eternity
To remain
Eternal father of modern Ghanaian poetry

Nyiᶑeʋu meᶑea keʋu o

The hippo does not overturn
The canoe with sandload

Nyiᶑewu meᶑea keʋu o