Let Her Play!

Yeah let her play;
I know she's just a six year-old,
Who knows little or nothing about life,
Than to play ten-ten with her friends Taiwo and Kehinde,
And to play suwe with Bose, with Fijabi, with Ajike;
Let her play.

Since the last rains, she has not let me rest.
She has turned me to the all-knowing Deity,
Who knows when what will come
And where how or which will happen.
She has longed for rains,
Rains to bathe her, to soak her, to soothe her.
When she saw the clouds changing,
Her mother, Iya Jumoke, usually smiled,
Especially when Jumoke shouted with joy, "ojo ti fẹ rọ!"
Iya Jumokẹ usually brought out the few buckets in the house
To fetch water the rains would bring,
While Jumoke brought down her clothes,
Till it remained her slacked pant
Which she has been wearing since she clocked two.
The beads round her waist
Seem to be the nexus,
Holding firmly the pant to the waist.

Just when the rains came drizzling,
Her dad would shout out,
"J U M O K E!!!"
She would shrink.

He called out again, and she pretended she didn't hear,
Just as the rains were about to come in full force,
I stormed outside, directing my bare feet in the clay soil,
To where Jumoke was.
Jumoke would plead, and plead,
Tears welling up in her eyes.
She would plead and plead-
At this time the rains have started
Beating against her dark skin;
But she could not feel it.
The attention I, the father demanded also arrested her sense of feel.
Before she knew it, she was inside!

It would have been better,
If the rains crept in and drowned us all
Together with the house,
Than if Jumoke took the house and threw it in the ocean
Of her unending wailings, her tears.
Not even cane could stop her;
She even cried the more.
In this the mother simply chipped in slowly and almost silently,
"Let her play."
Her face read that.
Jumoke's face got angry.
After some ten minutes of Iya Jumoke begging,
And Jumoke herself wailing,
I agreed for her to go, showing my approval of it.

I thought about the words,
"Let her play."
I realised she always loved rains,
She loved to see how it felt to bathe well,
Under the 'shower' like she saw the boy in her Elementary Science textbook do.
She had no sponge,
But she improvised,
Using her bare hands
To wash every detail in her body,
Just as her class teacher taught her.
I was happy at least,
That the Community School was good,
That my money was not going down the drains.
Even though it was N500 per term, I wouldn't mind borrowing to pay.

"Let her play!"
I was sorry I didn't allow her
To say what she usually said
When it was about to rain-at least for our amusement.
When the dusts usually came before the showers, she usually told her friends,
"Kuro ni ibe! Ojo ti fe bere! Awon Oluwa wa n gbale!!! Won gba orun si ile!"

Suddenly I hear her rendering
"Rain, rain, go away;
Come again another day;..."
Then she chewed her tongue for the rest.
I didn't know when I sighed and laughed, and simply agreed
To "let her play, please!"