Here is your Goat, Akparemobou, By Enewaridideke Ekanpou

By: Enewaridideke Ekanpou

Many decades they abandoned you, leaving you without the yearly pilgrimage.

For many decades no tethered goat ‘Enbeed’ in your forest, yet your shades sheltered all renegades.

A rash step it is, leaving you without goat homage for many decades.

Prodigals we are before you, but now awakened.

We have come together again to renew the yearly pilgrimage;

Count not our years of recklessness.

Before you is a goat .

The goat now burnt as an offering to you is the atonement for our recklessness and hubris.

Take this goat offering given from the depth of our hearts.

Shade us from darkness and shower upon us the radiance of good health, wealth and happiness.

Even in our days of recklessness and hubris you shielded us against spikes.

We are back to you like full flood;

Therefore, be more protective like the sun and the moon as security men of the sky.

We have come back to you fully, never to faulter in our new formation.

We have come back because we are dwindling like soap soaked in sea water

We are back to you because we have known your worth as a protector and giver.

We have come back because this generation is ready for the yearly pilgrimage .

We have come back because you never failed us even in our days of foolishness and stubbornness

We have come back to you because we want you to change our narrative from beggars to givers.

We have come back because no more shall we backslide again and float like water weeds.

We have come back to you because we have repented like the fully grown iroko tree…

Ekanpou writes from Akparemogbene, Delta State