Poem: Esperanza, The Meaning of Hope

ESPERANZA…
Yes it’s sad, yes it’s tragic…
Yes, it’s even worse than magic…
Unemployment, Starvation, Crime…
It’s nothing new; we see it every time…
From natural disasters to homicides…
From political matters to genocides…
It seems like things get worse every day…
Bad news is all we hear and say…
But reminiscing on historical events of the past…
The terror of slavery till we got freedom at last…
Blood shed as the warlords of Biafra clashed with Nigerian military…
Bloody coups, military rule suppression, and human rights anomie…
Primitive cultural practices such as the killing of twins…
The burial of seven men along side with the corpses of kings…
And how reformers came, fought, and conquered…

In spite of opposition and everything they suffered….
Men and women rose up to fight…
Western education brought us to light…
Technological innovations have been increasing since then…
With free unlimited access to information, every day we learn…
Every citizen now has freedom of speech…
And every religious leader, the freedom to preach…
Our scholars whose discoveries received worldwide applause…
As we rapidly began to gain back all we lost…
The conceptuality displayed in our visual and theatre arts…
Demonstrates the tenderness and goodness of our hearts…
The whole world reckons with our sport champions and musical artists…
The uniqueness of our musical genre and our historical antiques…
Sun shines, river flows, plants grows, and rain falls…
Can’t you see…it’s not all bad after all…
Looking at the past, the present, and the future…
All our opportunities and laid down structures…
There’s light at the end of the tunnel if we can see through…
I believe there’s hope, what about you?…