When from far off I saw you approaching
From the Wuhan City of Hubei Province
With your novel gift of deadly carrot
A mere play or drama me thinks it was
But surely my prognosis was proved untrue
In shining China I saw you first romancing
You crept in like a childish guest unnoticed
And not a single one amongst the seers
Ever knew you as the albatross of nations
Oh Coro! Oh Corona! Father of all viruses
You’re the cankerworm of global lockdown
The evil pest that darkens the sunny sky
The plague that makes the world to tremble
You fight the world without a single canon
Deadlier is your sting than the bomb of Hitler
Never in a century has the world suffered
A terrible blow like the heavy punch of yours
You spread abroad beyond the farthest coasts
You captured the mountains and valleys and hills
Like a dunghill smoke without a finite course
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He who embraces the kisses of your mouth
Is fast heading for the deepest of graves
He who dares your touch as if it’s a rose
On the way he’ll swiftly be to the pit of hell
You rid from our towns and even the cities
The jolly traffic of people in diverse directions
With your deadly grip upon the jugular of men
You wiped off the bliss from the faces of citizens
With the venom you poured at random around
The songs we sing around the streets in melodies
Are now the threnody that fill our mournful hearts
The neighbours and friends that once sit in group
The same you set apart like hermits in the hole
The grooms and their brides are no longer unite
For the fear of a demon that puts lovers asunder
You are the masquerade that no one must hobnob
The demonic dragon that knows no appeasement
You are, indeed, the terror the Scriptures fore-told
That walketh about in the dead of the night
You are the arrow the Psalmist fore-warned
That flieth in its fury in the cover of the dawn
You’re the pestilence that lurks in darkness
The ruin in the noonday that wasteth (in hundreds)
A thousand have fallen by your lethal a venom
And thousands are falling to your cruel attack
The kings and their subjects, the leaders and the led
Are hapless and helpless, and hopeless, ill-fated
Oh Covid! Oh Covid! Whether 19 or 20
Whatever garb you may be dressed or cloaked
May you live but just for only a short while
May your days be cut off upon the mother earth
May your violent wind that blows across the gale
May the wind be silent, may your whirlwind be still
May the siege you placed upon our roof-tops
May the mercies of God contain the brutish assault.
Sunday Afolayan, Author of Beyond the Silent Grave and other titles, is a lecturer in the Department of Mass Communication, Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, Owo, Nigeria
Study @ Achievers University
