Dr. Bolaji S. Ramos
I.
Good fences make good neighbours
Yours as yours and mine as mine.
Walls of Jericho and The Berlin Wall,
Stone demarcation for every ethnicity!
RUGA to the North; status quo to the South,
Yours as yours and mine as mine.
When farms are marked and rams are cowed,
Cows will be rammed and farms will be farmed!
One indivisible nation with three hundred doors,
Yours as yours and mine as mine.
Here there are cows and lethal Dino-Riders,
Needing walling in and instant walling out!
Should we build three hundred Towers of Babel
Since good fences make good neighbours—
Till oneness is consumed by shadows of our walls?
Walls are much better than wars,
But how high should they go?
II.
Borderless boundaries breed fresh breaths,
All as ours and ours for all.
No conscientious objections to diverse beliefs,
Nor demarcations in realms, in res or in regions!
Roasted heads of pigs served freely in the North
All as ours and ours for all.
Gingered gins to quench the thirst at Iftar
No hisbah to probe, no law to proscribe!
Sharia jurisdiction extended to the South
All as ours and ours for all.
Death by stoning still the sanction for infidelity,
And amputation there ward for theft!
Should we blindly bury all hatchets of differences
And define oneness only by our geography—
Till time reminds us again of our fragile matrimony?
All as ours and ours for all?
Fragile matrimony is better than acrimony,
But how long should it last?
–Bolaji S. Ramos
