The Ground Beneath Us – Wild Echoes section head

Clement Abayomi

Aiyétéjú

I return to this boulevard sitting between

creeks and hills, primal expanse with aged

exuberance & sights of sparrows that once

rose to fan the sky with their willing wings.

Now, even the wind forgets how to fly. & the

birds, with broken joy, hide maps under their

wings; they flutter feebly on haggard cashew

trees, their beaks chopping & chiselling the

tender tendrils of the branches for food. Every

rising smoke falls them apart. & I’m asking why

this habitat, brimful of urban blessings, now

ruptures the birds’ habit of homecoming. Here

is the bittering of green songs once sweet in the

mouth òwìwí & the beginning of swansongs from

an orchestra of songbirds. Farewell, farewell—

again, farewell—to the once clean home, to the

odán trees now weeping on lonely nights as bats

no longer keep them company. They, too, are

witnessing how a place begins to fade before it

crumbles. Tomorrow, when I pass the mango trees,

I hope they will still throw their gold to the ground,

I hope silence will not pick the fruit but children

running with open arms.

Aiyétéjú — the name of a place in Nigeria

òwìwí — owl

odán — baobab

Progress in Delta

& first, you’ll think black rain now falls from the sky,

baptizing the earth. A bleeding of black liquids from

erect pipes defying the womb of a verdant habitat.

But you can understand, now, why the river drowns

in the abyss of slicks & innumerable gods ripple

beneath its surface. Only for oaths to be swallowed in

oil. It is called development. Well, only if the fishes are

not made to wear their death like scales, nor have their

bellies bloated with benzopyrene, nor have their eyes

reflect the tragedy that licks the river’s skin. All is still

progress, anyway. I’ve been forced to accept that progress

is what lines up & bursts itself all over the roots of palm

trees, makes the trees, once dripping of green gold, to

stand like mourners, their smoked barks wounded with

saw-toothed irons, their bodies embalmed with black

anointing as they bid farewell to the memory of clean

earth. All is still progress. The cassavas, the yams, the

potatoes, stripped of vitality, yielding no strength. No

breath for children whose bellies now swallow hunger.

All is still progress since the earth spits out a sick percentage

of hope. The market rumbles with the murmur of lean crops.

All is still progress since the farmers still harvest smoke as

protein to make their families & nation happy, to watch

progress drip from the mouths of pipelines. I ask if national

sacrifice, too, will be part of the progress in Delta, if the hands

that spill the libation will not leave the table, if oil-stained

fingers will stop pointing to the future they’ve long kept in

pollutant-bearing pockets.

Clement Abayomi is a Nigerian poet and writer. He has been published in Tendon Magazine, Penned in Rage Literary Journal, African Writer Magazine, Poets Choice, among others. He won the 2024 Inaugural Bridgette James Poetry Competition and emerged second runner-up in the 2025 edition of the Annual Bridgette James Poetry Competition. His chapbook Untethered was selected for publication for the 2025 INKspired Chapbook Series. He is a graduate in English Literature from Lagos State University.

@clement_abayomi

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