Never, Never Forget Lake Nyos

Excerpt from Mishaps and other poems.

 

 Kamerun’s August Visitor.

 

When a thief gets into the safety vault

It is never any one’s fault

Not even when all is evident

The mission was by Mr President

Ordered just as I did to kill 1985

And to bury 1985

With none seeing me welcome 1986

Whose ghost, in this month of my birth since

Pursues me. And the journey I remember;

Awaiting high school GCE results

Harbouring no thoughts of assaults

And on board a bus from the Tropical Rain Forest

To the Grassfield where rest

I hoped I find,

To my ears the wind

Came chanting of Nyos, Cha and Subum

Where the bomb resounded boom, boom, boom!

And to nature, turned the architect’s accusing finger

And when in the future, I wonder,

Will my ears of the truth drink

For all I know if I think

And think properly is I didn’t touch the Grassfield

When I was told God’s chosen grandsons were in the field,

God indeed has shuttled them there quicker

And faster than would run any duiker

So they could minister care

And mask the tear

For all to delight

And follow the light

The light they threw away from the truth

And none will ever know this in sooth.