Sierra Leone at 48 - Abdulai Walon-Jalloh

I'm in ripe middle age
Facing the difficulties of a new page
Yet I'm expected to be a sage
Though I'm bound in my little cage

I can't take a wife
As little means attend my life
I remain that little knife
That causes occasional strife

I'm still in my parents' house
Though for every passing blouse
My passion is aroused
As my keen eyes browse

Too many children to call my own
Though for many their beings I disown
Yet for all of them I'm known
As I was at the time their seeds were sown

My essence now lies abandoned
As with perverted vigour my being is stoned
Grandchildren keep me constantly loaned
Like the flotsam and jetsam ocean-spawned

Why is my nativity so confusing?
Yet precise convenience is also troubling
Why the hurried labeling?
Is it for universal calling?

I outlast many a pretender
In languid fronting as a bartender
I'm water un-emptied in a cup
A cane-carrying verve at the top

What a bump I carry?
Is water suffused within?
Are my sides streamlined enough?
How bushy and wild my appearance?

Be it then that I'm '48

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Abdulai Walon-Jalloh (born 1970) Sierra Leone
Source: Sierra Leone Web