Snapsong 115: (Proverbs and Pro-nous)

Niyi Osundare

 

There is nothing

More unfree than Freedom

*

Memory may falter

Remembrance may stumble

But History never forgets

*

Make the Past predict the Future

Coop up the chicks before they ever hatch

*

Courage without candor

Candor without courage:

Which holds the candle

To the darkness of our times?

*

Show me one person

For whom all is well

And I will give you a thousand

For whom the world is a pit

*

Don’t let the tears of Adversity

Foreclose your eyes

Or the Rainbow of Fortune

May miss your gaze

*

Welcome to the royal banquet

But that fish on your golden tray,

Do you know what water teased

Its fins a happy night ago?

*

Tyranny never knocks

Before it enters.