Aborted Heroes | Hiam Terhile

At the middle of the time at dawn
Woke I at the heart a major town
Happy was I to press my pen down
Hardly were my ears itchy drawn
to a gentle groaning below the navel
The hope of being a father ignition
Fathering the teachers of the nation
And the faith of the nation to unravel.

Nana my dear, how is your novel?
Conceiving characters of the noble?
Oh, my dearest companion a hubby
The world ejaculates your name my honey
Four major names must I beget your use
North East West and South celebrate the news

Ah! at last the beautiful ones will be borne
At the bosom of a language teacher,
Working the night I planned the paper
Burning the candle the night at home
By each lesson planned I their future
My beautiful ones are heroes by nature.

Wake up Nana, the murderer of my dreams
Must you sojourn your birth to Niger-area?
Have you still my hope bestowed in your navel?
Is my reward a hero in heaven not in a novel?
I shall perpetuate your ills to mother Africa
Parents of my children have bitten my finger
Perhaps my children have drowned in the Niger
My heroes are aborted in a brief fever.

Poet's note: This poem is a lamentation about the dashed hopes of teachers, especially in Nigeria and Africa in general. The people who spend most part of their time, working under pressure to plan and prepare lessons for their learners. This gives them the dim hope that their students and the society would identify with them and better their working conditions. However, their hope of producing heroes that would sing the teachers' praises is usually dashed as the society treats them with disdainful approach, usually with the obnoxious ' teachers' reward is heaven ' mantra.