(Like the previous post on Nana  Nyarko’s “September, 2053“, I’ve nothing to add)

Freezing in Sunshine

(Re: “When it’s cold enough, there is social warmth” & “The Blizzard” by Phillis Levin)

I watched my first Yankee blizzard
from a warm cozy room:
storm windows secure,
radiators singing,
and the snow itself glittering fluffy and fragrant
like the suds from white boubous
that were already clean before this last wash.

There were twenty more years between then and
some nasty falls on the
much-trodden, stone- hard, eel-smooth
college snow
of north Ohio.

My Dear Brother, I could still have
sympathized from here
where the sun is abundant,
its instant warmth and promises of
power unlimited and ready for harvesting
where the earth and the sea compete to
gush gold gold, black gold or brown
to glean cash to fill the gaps
If need be.
Rather,
I freeze
with private fear at our public impotence:
hit as we are by a leadership’s steely hate that
camouflages as mere
indifference,
mediocrity, and
senseless greed.

The chill is in my bones, My Brother, and
Self-pity
blocks
my humanity.

– by Ama Ata Aidoo
Lashibi, 18/02/15

(With permission from the poet, who says the “poem is a work-in-progress, the word camouflages is clunky”.)