by Ebele Chizea

Our father is the great rising Sun

Our mother, the serpent who birthed humankind

Records of our footprints reveal we have marched this way before

Who is our mother you may ask?

She is the energy in your spine, your back bone, the ground beneath your feet…

Our father is a wise king descended from a realm of gods

A city with numerous vortexes of light

He is known by some as The Dweller

He also dwells in our hearts

Which is why we smile so much

Even through the rain and the whirlwind

Through hunched backs and trepid movements

We dance & sing & make music…

By our stripes, the world was reborn into a new way of doing things;

Of loving, of expressing, of worship

More than that, the ones to come later were fed

Because of the great human sacrifice

That history shall never forget

Umu anwu (children of light) we were

And just like Anyanwu (the Sun), We rise

Just like our father

Who came before us

So that we may also live

And like our mother who bears witness in this breath of time.