BY GLORIA O’KOYE

If problems were so easy to be solved

Why are they still happening?

If creation provided all the necessities,

Why only a small percentage of humans

Have full control of them.

Distribution in small rations to the masses,

While a few feast and even treat luxury of

Resources as waste filling up landfills.

If it was so easy for everyone to take

What is needed

Not out of greed, overfilling their pockets.

Leaving scraps for those enlightened

By humility and patience.

If problems were so easy to be solved,

Why our young who are strangers

Taking each other lives,

For the bickering between

Older generations that know one another.

For wars fought by those that are full of

Life, the people who live and die for their

Beliefs and propagandas being fed,

Only for disagreements to end with

Signatures on paper

After land and water fill with bloodshed.

If problems could be easily solved

At a snap of a finger,

And the people truly have a voice.

Why are the powers that retire

Placed as judges in inquests for

Others in current power.

Passing down sentences behind closed

Doors, with no community to be there.

All would be well in ideology,

If human nature didn’t add in the factors.

When solutions are already within reach

Yeh, we make things harder.

BY GLORIA O’KOYE

Dear children,

Please don’t rush to grow up.

Enjoy every single moment of your peace

Free from troubles,

Like the saplings that have patience to outgrow

The forest beds into the canopy

When it is their time.

Sweet babies

Value every second of playing,

Ignore negative remarks.

Attempting to quicken the pace of growing

Up, into a world that

Doesn’t want innocence to be the focus.

Lessons will learn in time,

In its own pace,

Milestones will be reach just at the nick of

Time.

No need to compare how fast or slow,

All shall be accomplished in fate.

Please enjoy your youth

Little ones.

Life will not halt or rewind,

Expanding like the stars we cannot see

With naked eyes.

Memories are like snowflakes

Unique to individuals,

Sometimes aging will make them melt

Before you can relish their designs.

Little ones

Don’t rush to grow up.

Enjoy the carefree world

Before reality strikes.

Youthful laughters are the medicine

During harsher times.

BY GLORIA O’KOYE

The drums and songs have saved

Generations from the turmoils of

Cursed Lands filled with lost souls.

Where decisions were made by choice

Or wrongful convictions, or ones filled

In the spirit of necessities.

Where they are laid to rest

Behind walls that would label them

For eternity as the enemy.

Only for the potential threats

Of good medicines to be taken away

By those whose intention and beliefs

May hinder restorative practices,

Only promoting punishments.

A tear equates to a thousand leaks

From any vessel that grips to the speck

Of redemption.

To be heard

To be seen.

While some only see it as cuts to keep

Pockets well fed

Could be the only thing that keeps

One’s sanity, within a limbo

A foot in this realm

Another foot wanting to exit to find peace

In the next.

How many more waterfalls does it need

To drench up the concrete jungle

Known as society to take a glimpse.

The greed of reductions to save pennies

Will cost humanity more

But it’ll be too late once everything

That was taken for granted

Disappears and is gone.

For the women in Edmonton Institution that have been facing refusals for being able to play on the big drum. There are folks out here that stand with you all.