In this Friday’s edition of my Friday Poetry Series, I celebrate Mr. Orwell Amponsah G , my mentor and the Ashanti Regional Director of the National Youth Authority who has just turned 40. He looks after me like his own. He held my hands and took me to places I did not deserve to be. He introduced me to people I could never meet on my own. He patted me on the back at my lowest points. He gave me hugs at my highest. Like many young people in the Ashanti Region, he gave me a reason to dream and imbued in me the spirit of can-do. Godspeed to him.
Poem:
THE YOUTH AT 40
At the sunup of April twenty-two
A baby was born
The kinda baby that bounces from head to toe
His father was happy to have him from his groin
Like all other babies do
He cried from dusk to morn
To the ears of the hearer, it was a cry baby
To the queen mother, it was a little king singing melody
Little king grew up speedily
As a boy, he illuminated a whole community
He climbed hills courageously
He whiled away his boyhood studiously
Little king turned thirty
Now a big man who spends his youth judiciously
He hates being called a king thanks to humility
But to young lives, he impacted mightily,
He is the paramount of all kings deservingly
He served as a metro director of NYA dutifully
Who is surprised if he is at the regional at forty?
He is the youth at forty
The luminary of the youth including those in their puberty
He has alleviated poverty
The poverty of self-esteem in society
I salute the youth at forty
He comes to age forty gracefully.
Watch the performance audio slide below:
