Yesterday
She walks in beauty like a night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes
Now, twenty quaint beads adorn
The swinging rhythm of her waist
No more the little girl of dawn
Hours flew past in haste
Today,
Hundreds of papers and rivers of inks
Woefully failed their noble duty
In describing her radiant beauty
And the magic that happens when she blinks
One more bead slides down the cord
Kissed the twentieth and whispered a word
We lost another girl to the women I say
It’s the third of September today
3rd of September 2011
©Olaniyan Adewale Prince
For Funmi Aruwajoye, on the event of her initiation into ‘womanhood’. Wish you many more beads.
