Hymn Of Clean Water

for every poem you write about here
an honest politician is born

every time you write how disaster
made a colony of our bones
a child’s hunger means something

every time you chant
BRING BACK OUR GIRLS
a silent woman reclaims expression

for every call to prayer
every sighting of a minaret
the unbearableness of God feels holy

for every time you outlaw child marriage
dead flowers bloom again

for every story we reclaim in our dialects
a colonial narrative is overthrown

for every time the government beshields
her people
buckets of memories come back
emptied of blood

for every time we collect our tongues
say an anthem for the beauty of our cultures
Okonkwo is alive and well

for every week without a bomb blast
the tears written on our faces
are not calligraphy, but salvation

for every limb that is not mutilated
every uncovering of unseeing eyes
every hymn of clean water
every budget well spent
we make a religion of humanity

insha’Allah the archeology of ourselves will begin
we will unearth a language for communal grief
for solidarity
for restoration
insha’Allah we will flood this desert full of hope
insha’Allah we will be more alive
than we could ever be

By Precious Arinze

Biography:

Precious Arinze is a Nigerian Poet, freelance writer, and undergraduate student of Law at the University of Benin. Her work has appeared in Mikrokosmos journal and is forthcoming everywhere.