![[POEM] Ayo Banjo - Hope Eghagha](/media/k2/items/cache/3618d4fd4168a40871248b20ab8e9619_XL.jpg)
To him who answered the night call
In the night of his life
He, whose booming voice
Boomed even in the twilight
Of his many seasons
This side of earth
Ayo Banjo
His voice arrested voice over artistes
In a serene and natural flow
Of words and expressions
His majestic presence
Called even old fools to order
It is Ayo Banjo
Gogorogo ni gagaraga
Iroko on the move
Okpako amua
That we ruefully
Wave off at the pier
Between our lost world
And the certain and sure rhythms of the ancestral hemisphere
It is not a mourning song
That we sing
This ululation becomes Banjo
It is joyful goodbye to him
Who became an ancestral spirit in English studies
While he lived with us mortals
Ferry our greetings to Achebe
Clark, Adetugbo & Okigbo
&
All kindred spirits who travelled before you
Tell them of our sufferings
And the ashes emilokan
And infernal gang have poured into our mouths
Gogorogo
To de
Ke siefa
K'akpo ofa
Hope Eghagha, a Professor of English at the University of Lagos.
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