Why did we cross the ocean?
To earn a living, then go back home.
Àjò ò dá bí ilé.
But the promise we crossed for
became a horizon that kept moving.
We traded sleep for night shifts,
and sunshine for the winter cold.
Our parents’ voices thin across the miles,
their faces fading into pixelated smiles.
We watch their hair turn silver, one call at a time.
Our children speak in borrowed accents now.
The sacrifice was for them,
yet soon they too will leave,
and we will become the parents
they remember through screens.
The return flights wait
on a date we keep postponing.
For what shall it profit us certto gain the world
and lose our home?
*Àjò ò dá bí ilé:* A Yoruba adage meaning ‘The journey (or living away)can never be compared to home.’
Chris Okunnuwa is a UK-based poet and author of Kitofa: Poems of Lineage & Water (Rayany Publishing). His poems have appeared in Sevhage Reviews and other journals.
Share This
