-Alfred Olaiya

Mother, mother, send down the rope,

          alujanjan kirijan.

Mother, mother, send down the rope,

          alujanjan kirijan.

Night’s glints slit tendrils into hollow footprints on desolate playground.

Sẹ̀kẹ̀rẹ̀, termites-loam draped, will not indulge in this silenced chorus.

Grandmother, passage of your tongue;

sinuous labyrinth, buoyed me to crested currents—plunged in flipping leaves;

of the mischievous tortoise and the exploits of his treachery,

of fairy images fueled with fascination of infantry,

of choruses sprinkled with moonlit season(ing)s, 

steeping a child’s heart in febrile catharsis.

Mother, mother, send down the rope,

         alujanjan kirijan.

of the red-robe-cloaked Ṣàngó—

the one who hanged but did not hang—

gnawing fire as he bathe in blazing clouds of lightnings;

of the fierce Ògún in his igneous robe of fronds,

savoring the gore from his palm-wine gourd.

Mother, mother, send down the rope,

         alujanjan kirijan.

Of the river-sprawling Yemoja in her opulence of fertility,

of the dreaded Èṣù; devouring sacrifices in the cave of crossroad.

As the fragments of these nights frazzle in faded memories,

I sing;

Grandmother, grandmother, beckon your seeds from the eyes of the moon,

         alujanjan kirijan.