Mádàáríkàn
Before the white-robed man,
who opened Psalm Thirty-Five
like an unknown moon
over our astonished heads,
before strange words began
to know the way of Africa,
before the church bell threaded
its metallic voice into our day—
there was Mádàáríkàn.
It wasn’t a charm,
for charms are trivial—
things tied to wrists,
or forgotten in a season of abundance.
Mádàáríkàn was a vow:
a fire asleep
within the bosom of the forest,
a seed of lightning buried
under iroko trees.
The elders used its name
with pure mouths,
cleaned by kola-nut bitterness,
because certain words must not be
spoken carelessly.
When witches cast their shadows
as dark fabrics during evening hours,
when envy turned itself
into an invisible weapon,
when Death watched silently
behind doors, counting
human breaths,
Mádàáríkàn appeared.
Without making any sound,
for a leopard makes none,
and yet the grass trembles.
Under its invisible roof, children slept;
crossing rivers mothers had no fear.
The farmers went to work with
sunlight still upon their shoulders,
because Mádàáríkàn guarded:
the silent warrior
dressed in leaves,
with eyes that shone like glowing coals
forged by Sango.
In this way, Africa kept dawn
in its darkness.
SKIN OF TWO RIVERS
My lifestyle, my culture,
was my closest friend—
we feasted under moonlit courtyards,
drank palm wine that laughed in clay cups,
and I walked like a drumbeat in its rhythm.
I was always mindful of it
before each step,
before each breath.
I fell in love
with my gold-threaded aṣọ-òkè,
its patterns whispering stories
only my blood could read.
Always on
my dànsíkí
and abẹtí ajá—
cloths that swayed like elders
speaking in the wind—
because
they preached of me,
chanted my name in every fold.
Not until
some set of people,
skin like unripe pawpaw peeled clean,
voices rolling like foreign drums,
entered ilẹ̀ Ọmọ Odùduwà,
where I stayed—
I fell in love with their skin,
smooth as river stones after the rain,
gleaming like the inside of coconut flesh.
I wished to be like them.
So, I abandoned
my òrí,
my àdí-àgbọn,
and I reached
for lotion—
the one that poured its perfume
like a white hibiscus at night—
the one the oyinbo lady
was drawn on.
Èmi, Ọmọ Adúláwọ,
became a river split—half
midnight, half moonlight.
I fell in love
with their shirts,
and I got mine too.
Agbádá became
a tattered sail
on the wrong wind.
I threw out
with force
my culture—
the staff
I was meant to guard—
like a calabash dashed against rock.
Now, I regret.
My culture
is fading.
My children,
growing like strangers
in the very soil that bore them,
tongues forgetting the taste
of proverbs.
They must regain
what is theirs—
the buried yam,
the lost drum,
the truth with dust on it.
not name.
I wore the dust of the talking drum
in my veins,
but I let its rhythm
be muffled by metal strings
that sang in another man’s tongue.
I loosened my grip
on the adire cloth
that once wrapped me in stories,
each pattern
a proverb dyed in indigo,
and reached instead for fabrics
smooth as lies,
sewn without memory.
I once danced
where the bata’s heartbeat
shook the moonlight,
but I drifted toward ballrooms
where my feet moved
like a stranger’s shadow.
Even the kola nut—
bitter as truth at first bite—
I set aside
for sugar cubes
that dissolved before I could taste them.
And the language—
my father’s voice
woven with my mother’s laughter—
I folded it away
in a chest that smelled of mothballs,
while syllables not my own
slipped from my tongue
like rain off a thatched roof.
But a shadow fell across me
the day I could no longer
name the bird
that called me at dawn,
the day the sky above my village
looked foreign.
Now I stand
at the edge of that forgetting,
barefoot,
feeling the red earth
press its pulse into my soles.
The drum still waits.
The adire still breathes.
And my tongue—
though bruised by exile—
is learning again
to taste its first truth.
ÒGBÓRÍẸLÉMỌ̀SỌ́
Earth remembers
the morning iron sang—
Ogunlọlá’s knife rose like dawn,
Elẹ́mọ̀sọ́’s head fell into stillness
yet rising again as seed,
a city germinating where marrow touched soil.
Ogun ọ̀ jàlú—
war driven back upon the threshold,
its blaze extinguished sooner than the clay doorway.
two children still dwell underground,
breath hidden in the dust,
their whispers pulsing within the calabash of earth,
sentinels of a sleep no war disturbs.
Ogun ọ jàjà kókó Ògbomọ̀ṣọ́ lọ—
iron clinked, but peace was created,
an ìrókò rooted in the very middle of the land,
its crown wide enough
to cover generations.
the soil was in love with the hoe,
arched backs to rainbows across yam ridges,
callused hands against cassava’s recalcitrant giggles.
ọmọ ajẹkà kótó mù’kọ yangan
children who savor their sweat like palmwine,
their pride increasing with harvest.
memory bends—
spears for schools,
evangelist bells tolling where war drums once beat,
markets flourishing like kola groves,roads extending
like veins into depth,
justice spoken in vocalisations
as steady as rain.
and Alàgbà—
oldest in line,
staff older than silence,
his name still shakes within the bone of dust.
jẹ́ kí n pẹ́ o
that’s our dear prayer,
now he becomes our memory.
àgbà kìì wà lọ́’jà kó’rí ọmọ tuntun o wọ̀
his presence lingers,
even in absence,
guiding heads
away from the ground.
this planet is no broken bottle.
it’s a drum wrapped in lion-skin,
a gourd packed with grain,
a flexing but non-shattering palm tree,
thunder becoming clay,
history engraved upon living bone.
I dance to its rhythm
lodged in my ribs,
its rivers flowing within veins,
its proverbs burning my tongue.
the covenant endures—
every breath of this ground
a perpetual encomium.
Glossary:
mádàáríkàn: a protective spirit or force in Yoruba cosmology. Literally “the one that will not be defeated/overpowered”. A vow/oath of protection, not a “charm”.
îrókò: African teak tree, sacred tree. Symbol of strength, spirit, endurance.
ṣàngó: Yoruba deity of thunder, lightning, fire, justice.
aṣọ-òkè: hand-woven Yoruba prestige cloth with gold/silver thread, worn for ceremonies.
dànsíkí: short, round-necked traditional Yoruba shirt for men.
abẹ́tí ajá: Yoruba cap shaped like dog ears; “dog’s ear cap”.
ilè Ọmọ Odùduwà: “land of Oduduwa’s children”; Yorubaland/Southwest Nigeria.
oyínbó: white person; literally “skin peeled/scalded”.
òrí: Yoruba name for shea butter.
àdí-àgbọn: Yoruba name for coconut oil.
Agbádá: flowing, wide-sleeved Yoruba gown.
bàtá: double-headed Yoruba drum sacred to Ṣàngó.
Èmi, Ọmọ Adúláwọ̀: “I, child of Adúláwọ̀”; Adúláwọ̀ means “one with black skin”.
Ogunlọlá: first monarch/founder of Ògbomòṣọ́ in present-day Oyo State.
Elẹ́mọ̀sọ́: warrior defeated by Ogunlọlá in Ògbomòṣọ́ founding myth.
Ogun ọ̀ jàlú: “war cannot subdue Ògbomòṣọ́”; war was driven back.
Ogun ọ jàjà kókó Ògbomọ̀ṣọ́ lọ: “no war can subdue Ògbomòṣọ́”; peace was created.
ìrókò: African teak tree, sacred tree at center of Ògbomòṣọ́.
ọmọ ajẹkà kótó mù’kọ yangan: eulogy phrase; “children who savor their sweat like palm wine”.
Alàgbà: revered royal tortoise of the Soun of Ògbomòṣọ́ palace; lived for 344 years.
jẹ́ kí n pẹ́ o: prayer phrase; “let me live long”.
àgbà kìì wà lọ́’jà kó’rí ọmọ tuntun o wọ̀: proverb; “an elder cannot be in the marketplace and a child’s head gets twisted”.
Olamoyegun, Noah O. is a Nigerian educator, poet, and micro-fiction writer. Born and raised in Ogbomoso, Oyo State, his writing engages Yoruba cosmology, indigenous knowledge systems, and the contemporary African experience of memory and belonging. Influenced by Wole Soyinka, Niyi Osundare, and J.P. Clark, his work draws from the cadence of Yoruba oral tradition and the lyric precision of the Nigerian poetic lineage. His poems and prose have appeared in Afrocritik, MAAR, Kalahari Review, among others.
Feature Image by Qing Luo on Perxels