A Time to Change

This poem was written for and delivered at Daystar Leadership Academy's (DLA) Basic Leadership Course Weekend Programme July 2011 graduation ceremony. It was met with great ovation.

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Everyone is battered by change.
Broken and bruised and shattered by change
Change is unavoidable,
Its violent assault is inescapable.
No mercy  in its flinty eyes.
Rain falls on the fool and the wise.  
Still, Do not let change be a foe.
Do not bow beneath its blow,
Starving leper, why wait to die?
Take a step, make the Syrians fly!


So, what would you rearrange?
What is the road towards your change?
A better way to love your wife?
Break the addictions in your life?
Hand to the plough to till the land?
Plate pushed aside, reduced waistband?
Fingers magic on the keyboard?
A ministry serving the Lord God?  
Building the next great enterprise?
What sharp vision fills your eyes?


Yet change is so hard to embrace
Harder still to maintain the pace.
It's tough to leave the familiar
We don't want to face the stranger
Stinging is the scoffer's laugh
Painful blow from a brother's staff
Sleepless nights, reddened eyes,
Blistered hands, repeated tries  
Working, working all through the night,
When comes the dawn when shines daylight?


At DLA the work begins,
Adeyemi and Folarin.
The field is planted by Seedy,
Adisa shares on family.
Kpandei and Dada show the way,
Growth comes with Oloyede.
Skills by Williams and Oladimeji,
Methods by Aje-Oluyomi,
Akoni, and Daniels do the rest,
Mr. Thomas brings on the test.


You do the things you learnt in school,
Applied the word and used the rule.
Though the fight was hard and long,  
You wouldn't quit, you held on strong.
At last you raise your head and see
The battle's won,  oh glory be!
You see, You have changed.
Your life has been rearranged.
You fought when none believed in you
And now the dream has come true.

Oladejo Fabolude.
July 16, 2011