Poem: with them, not of them

Years of sojourn
Triggered prosperity,
Years of labour
Sparked recognition.
Today unlike yesterday,
You talk, eat, drink
And sleep like them.
Your crude manners
Are fully refined.
Your blindness has
Given way to sight.
Your mental bluntness
After years of lopping
Cuts intellectual snags
Asunder, yes asunder.
You even outclass peers
In that dry cosy enclave.
But all is not well.
II
Your nest hangs loosely
On borrowed branches
When it can be firmed
On branches groomed
By our proud ancestors.
Never assume equity
In that land of inequity.
Strangers are depleting,
Abusing our ancestral
Home and wealth.
Our elite kinsmen have failed.
With strangers they deprive
Our own of their birthright.
So long have we begged
Amid nature’s plenitude.
III
The land needs that skilled
Head and hand of yours.
Your selfless and patriotic
Fervours are vital to defy
External despotic dictates.
Enough of the prolix epistles
That sporadically emerge
To correct the follies of the
Heads that rule our realm
With careless competence.
Your presence is needed
Where your words dim.
You rot where there
Are many of your kind.
Return to where it all
Started for the salvation
Of the helpless remnants.
For you and not them
Can rekindle the dimming
Flame of our dull dignity.

SOURCE: OKOFO-DARTEY SAMUEL E-MAIL: sodesq2000@yahoo.com