You tried every possible thing,

To bring him down, 

To watch him fall from light to dark places, 

to crouch on jagged rock, on sand and debris

You consulted mediums and trafficked in divinations,

night visitations to the high priestess of the Python deity,

Swam into the ocean depths to invoke the spirits of the marine—

a kingdom beneath the earth

hidden away from our sights at creation 

for fear of our safety 

Your drastic thunder struck,

quaking the earth’s foundations,

which gave way to a sinkhole.

You wielded words like a knife,

each syllable strung as affliction, 

Chanted spells on blood, incense and red cloth,

To stop his mission.

But what greater abracadabra could wrestle the Novenas and the Apostle’s creed ?

You tried to drown him in your lies—

manifestations of the manipulators sting, 

To covet what wasn’t yours, 

appetite for fire sealed in sacred vessels 

O! chosen one 

O! tide after tide, 

Wave after wave,

Through sandstorms, floods and roaring volcanos,

You Psalm 91’d it all.

They must have thought you a fragile petal,

forgetting that you were the very root from which the Iroko and the mahogany grew,

The legacy of a thousand gathered ancestors,

divine cloud of shield, 

the oiled hand of God on His anointed 

Look to the hills at a thousand different birds,

a thousand different leaves

the songbirds singing the miracle of your life in call and response,

the trees in the wind fluttering the rhythm of your strength,

The

Unconquerable,

Invictus

Chosen One.