If not here under the moons
of our gaze, then where
can our children freely sing
a song that swells for no reason
but joy broiling, an impermanence
seeking for itself a clearing
in which it is sound,
sweet as cane, that muddles
the tongues of those huddled around
basins of bleached sheets,
beating cotton against stone.
Let the drought stretch
its own chorus out. We will listen
till heaven is a scorched lid
and rain pricks
the fields green. Till the smallest
of our children are cloud-tall,
till the roof of the sky fails
a purse of light encircling
this burning rock. Till the noise
of our children is a thunder
we have forgotten,
heirlooms blown across
earth’s dry face. Our seeds
kissing the tarmac
of its unadopted roads
and finding there a home.
mulika ojikutu-harnett
mulika ojikutu-harnett is a Lagos-born Nigerian with UK settled status. An independent producer, transpersonal coach, trainee analytic psychotherapist and Zen yogini. A graduate of Manchester Writing School currently completing a second MA at London Poetry School. Published in PERVERSE with new work forthcoming in an anthology. Their poem ‘Bruisewort’ was awarded fourth prize in the Kent & Sussex Poetry Society Open Competition (2025).
Photo by Kristina Kutleša on Unsplash