Ode to Annan Atta

Dear Brother Kofi,
You have become a soliloquy to death,
In passing of your clouds.
A great sunlight, set to roam history
as dead, will soon be forgotten.
Ancient adulation will arise from caves,
but only to some you have found a bed
in the land of the dead.
No Ashanti dancers upon your words,
no crimson ties of colored peace.
Say our greetings to black builders like Mandela.

Dear Brother Annan,
Sleep is the growing of the heart,
in tears or in abstract words painting a dream.
Yours was truly an embodiment of fragile,
tinted with history and a gold name.
We call upon your feet, the travelers guide,
do not forget where your sons had fathers
even while the name on your bone whisks away.
Say our greetings to black builders like Tafawa.

Dear Brother Atta,
Refuse not our kola,
drink from our libations.
Wake the slumbering ancestors,
tell them of here.
Tell them of where truth sets you free but it ties a soul,
tell them of Zanzibar, Prairie, Shendam and Legon.
Sound the drums of Timbuktu,
use the clocks borrowed from the pain of our skin.
Say our greetings, announce our regards.
Tell them of the land that holds the great
that we sent you in peace, please.

Ruddapoet [TRCP]