THE NECESSARY TABOO

Left it was untendered
Struggling for rightful attention
This heir in its fiefdom
The alien adulated
Enthroned with great reverence

Howbeit is it now a taboo
To speak my language to get a boo
Now my mother tongue inimical to learning
Just as my food is unhygienic in nutrition
Now as a Roman must speak Greek

What need for me to bear a name in my native tongue
That I cannot unravel
Having a time table in my home
Where my mother allows me to speak her tongue
Only during the weekends

My folks do not even care
If am not taught Yoruba in school
But rush in frowns to demand for phonics
So I can speak through my nose
Like an imbecile

I say bon jour they marvel
Now I have to speak Mandarin
While Fagunwa writhes in pain
And Alawiye watches in horror
The gradual demise of their ingenuity

This language is cherished yonder
And they are growing with it fonder
Coming here to display it to our wonder
Alas! How can? We wonder
Struck in awe with careless thunder

Now it has packed its cases
Stocked in parcels cargo bound
Through a vortex to land not unknown
For someday we may have to pay through our nose
To learn Yoruba not in Ife but in Oxford