Coronavirus: A Curse In Disguise Or The Price Of Negligence?

I - THE GLOBAL PAIN
For some months now, the globe
Has been quarantined in a coronavirus wardrobe
As the entire eerie earth
Is swallowed by this ill-health.
Coronavirus has sadly turned the globe upside down
Putting on the helpless world a pandemic gown,
China, the birth place of the deadly disease
Together with the whole wide world has known no peace

The great scientists the world over have been experimenting

While the merciless coronavirus keep tormenting
Everything has come to a standstill
As the world keep hunting for a lasting healing pill

Man has become temporary enemy to his closest neighbour

As towards coronavirus eradication we fruitlessly labour.

Coronavirus has become our unwanted and uninvited guest

Making our lives bad and worst
Churches, schools and other institutions have been hit hard

Businesses have collapsed as insecure men remain hapless with none to guard.

The more we try to know,
The more we realize we do not know
The more we try to understand,
The more we realize we have nothing on which to stand.

The rate at which the virus spread with athletic speed,

A perfect personification will be to describe it as being greed

Men and women have been consumed by fear
Numerous deaths have drawn seas of tears
No nation has been left of the hook
In some countries, coronavirus has imprisoned many, none to cook.

I watched with worrying horror, the sporadic deaths in Italy

And like a tired cock, I went to bed early
My eyes rained coals of tears as I watched China
Become like biblical Israelites on wilderness waiting for manna.

The situation has become pathetic
As coronavirus transitions from pandemic to epidemic.

We have all become global hunters
Hunting for non-existing answers
As we continue searching for solution in the medical atlas,

The question we must humbly ask is “what is the coronavirus telling us?”

II - THE CASE OF GHANA
Ghana is a country everyone fancy
But many a time, we are seriously funny
We are naturally people who talk more
But quickly ran away when duties call.
We have been a people with a common voice
Until a monster called politics gave us its invoice

We have been a nation so united for every reason
Until the mushrooming of doctrines and interpretation of religion

These twins, religion and politics have infested us with more viruses

Than the global pandemic, coronavirus.
I want you, cherished reader, to think a while
And put the below question in your mental file.
What would have happened in Ghana
If we have not recorded a single coronavirus case as at now?

Many men who have become Gods
Would have attributed it to their source
Isn’t it funny that some have claimed ownership

For prophesying the coronavirus in such hardship?
Some power drunk politicians would have attributed good administration

As the reason for this eradication
We would have claimed because we are Christian country

And wouldn’t have given other religions any entry

Some would have claimed it is their prayers
Many would have taken the glory including soothsayers

We would have vehemently ignored effective hand washing

And resort to fasting and coronavirus cursing
We would have ignored all security and health measures

And nonchalantly continue with our pleasures.
So the cases in Ghana has exposed our frailties
And cornered us with life realities
The coronavirus cases in Ghana is a wake-up call
To put us on our toes so that Ghana will not fall.
III - I THINK YOU ARE THINKING?
The presence of coronavirus in Ghana should set us thinking

That we will begin to do what is missing
The arrival of the virus here should cause a change

If we want to be on the G8 development page
The time is now to be proactive
Rather than always being reactive.
Must we wait for coronavirus burden
To teach us to observe societal hygiene?
Must the coronavirus infection
Be the emissary to tell us of our institutional congestion?

Must we allow a vampire, coronavirus to perch
On our national flag before we regulate the activities of churches?

Must coronavirus be the one to set the rules
That there are no proper health conditions in our schools?

Do we need rocket science in our docket
Before authorities supply schools veronica buckets?

Must coronavirus be the chief regent
To tell authorities that our schools need detergent?

Must we beg coronavirus for pity
When our markets are chocked and filty?
Looking critically at our commercial vehicles,
Do we need coronavirus to tell us many are pregnant with filty particles?

Should coronavirus put us in societal prison
Before we begin to think of having UG, KNUST, UCC, UEW,UMAT etc. in every region?

Must coronavirus be the teacher to give us education

That the time is ripe for us to control our importation?

We have never been serious with issues about health

So why won’t coronavirus force us to invest all our wealth?

On God we each minute and hour lazily wait
For even the basic human responsibilities, hence our sadistic fate

As we continue to look unto God for His healing miracle,

As Ghanaians, towards our duties, we must be responsible

May God help us that the world and Ghana would not sink

But may He equally help us to think.
From a room alone with my pen
Shadrack Oteng (0543970691)
[email protected]

Author: Shadrack Oteng (poet-Shaddy)

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