THE MORNING AFTER...
I have often watched grandpa
With utmost and unmatched admiration.
Even at seventy-eight, he basks still
In an array of youthful vigour.
Grandpa was a soldier,
A man of the khakis.
Mother said he fought in the war
That kept my country ;
The war that kept us apart.
One evening, while grandpa was taking
His evening bacon his stretch chair,
I saw on his bare chest, close to his arm
A scar from a bullet wound.
Like a dreamer from a trance, he opened his eyes
And beckoned me to take a closer look.
"Adisa", he said "it is not untrue that time heals
But time, my son, only heals the Physical"
He fought the tears welling in his eyes.
"I fought in the war and lost my lots-
Friends whose families knew not for which
Course they fought."
"Their death gored my heart for they died on another man's course.
It mattered not on whose side they fought
Because in wars, there are no winners,
Just dead men...
The hero is the man who walks home alive"
"Omo Akin", he continued,
"There are only four courses in a man's life-
The morning when he is born;
Noon when he fights his own wars;
The evening when he fights the wars of others
And the morning after when he nurses the
Scars from his warring past.
This is my morning after, a gored heart from the wars"
Akinbola Oyetayo Michael (Teelaw)
Faculty of Law,
Obafemi Awolowo University,
Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
