Brother souls who live beyond our days,
Don't turn towards us hearts of hollow stone,
For if you pity us, such wretched strays,
Goddess redeem indulgence you'll have shown.
You see a hand or so of us thus strown:
Bodies once well fed of ill-got gain
Now ravened by rot and beasts upon the plain.
We, the bones who speak, turn dust and ash.
None should deign to chuckle at our pain,
But wish all ghosts kind Fortune's calabash.

If we acclaim you brothers, don't dare raise
A haughty sneer, even if we were thrown
To fate by law.  No news to you the ways
Of some whose fond flesh scorns reason's sharp tone.
Commend us, scoundrel bodies lying prone,
To Mother Earth, and spirits' fullest reign,
To our small portion of descendant's grain,
Not scorching evil bush of noisome trash.
We're anscestors.  Let none compound our pain,
But wish all ghosts kind Fortune's calabash.

The thick rains leave us steaming, washed, Sun's rays
Leave us blackened, shadow, each, of parched crone;
Charnel birds have plucked eyes from each face,
Ripped off each beard and eyebrow, all but bone.
Never once were we left to sit alone;
Once here, now there with charging wind and rain;
We move without a break, as they ordain,
More pecked by birds with holes than thimbles.  Rash
Therefore to join our brotherhood of pain,
But wish all ghosts kind Fortune's calabash.

Ala, Great Mother, world be your domain,
Ban triumph of the evil bush, our bane,
Nor grant it right of debt of deed or cash.
Fellows, here's no mockery of pain:
Do wish all ghosts kind Fortune's calabash.

-- 
Uche
3 May 2005, Superior