The Road To The Mill Poem by Tony Adah

The lunch box was always filled
Roasted yams with black charcoal on them
Dried yam flecks, peanuts
We ate like birds drank elsewhere
Where water was found.
But school was far
We trekked with dust gladden feet
Or mud smears
Our black slates in our armpits
And chalks in our pockets
Nose drifting with phlegm
And a black wrist from mopping it.
Six years passed and we left the place
With memories of cows, pigs and dogs
And canoes and rivers in our readers
And teachers and punishment and mates
Dull and bright and a bundle of canes.
That's the mill that ground a fine powder
The world uses today
Or the furnace that burned the raw gold
Into a shining gem
That was then.