Andy Aryeetey

Baby Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah asleep in his cradle
Mama sighs relieved from the cuddle
The Milky Way is twinkling just for you
And Mr. Moon has come by to say goodnight to you
100 years on and every night comes he
But just in case the sky hides his face one night
The fireflies want Nkrumah to know
That they also have been wishing him goodnight.

Baby Yaa Asantewaa asleep in her cradle
Mama sighs relieved from the cuddle
The Milky Way is twinkling just for you
And Mr. Moon has come by to say goodnight to you
169 years on and every night comes he
But just in case the sky hides his face one night
The fireflies want Yaa Asantewaa to know
That they also have been wishing her goodnight.

Baby Philip Gbehoe, Baby Ndewura Jakpa
Baby Tetteh Quarshie, Baby Nii Tackie Tawiah
Baby Osei Tutu
Omu ewu neensu, omu wui…

Baby Bob Marley asleep in his cradle
Mama sighs relieved from the cuddle
The Milky Way is twinkling just for you
And Mr. Moon has come by to say goodnight to you
64 years on and every night comes he
But just in case the sky hides his face one night
The fireflies want Bob Marley to know
That they also have been wishing him goodnight

The fire flies sing of Baby Lucky Dube, of Baby Jomo Kenyatta
Baby Togbe Tsali, Baby Ofori Panyin I, Baby Prempeh;
Baby Tweneboah Kodua, Baby Okomfo Anokye;
Babies Ephraim Amu, Theodora Okpo, Martin Luther King Jnr, Martin Luther, Alexander the Great,
Mama Africa, Malcolm X, Isaac Newton, Abraham Lincoln;
Baby Imperial Haile Selasie, Mahatma Gandhi, Sekou Toure, Sundiata, Sumanguru, Pharaoh Narmer, Pharaoh Khufu, Louis the Pious;
Baby Florence Nightingale, Chris Columbus, Neil Armstrong, William Caxton, Boutrous Boutrous Ghali, Baby Nova Scotia, Leonardo Da Vinci;
Baby Wilbur Wright, Baby Orville Wright, Babies Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Darwin,

But
What about Baby Ted Bundy?
What about Baby Adolf Hitler?
What about Baby Idi Amin, Baby Mobuto
Baby King Agorkoli and baby Machiavelli?
Can fireflies erase their memory?
Mr. Moon has refused to wish them goodnight.
Their fingerprints were atrocious
Their fingerprints were foul
They lost that which is better than riches.

What about baby you and me?
When we are dust, shall our names be on the lips of the fireflies?
Shall we become like the stars that twinkle?
Shall Mr. Moon wish us goodnight each night?
Fireflies want Mr. Moon to come by for Mandela,
For Obama, for Ellen Johnson Sirleaf…
For the living legends…
Would the fireflies sing of you?
Or would you lose that which is better than riches?
Before you are gone, why not write your name on the stars?
Why not make sure that they will never forget you?
So that you too will live forever…

Andy Aryeetey
March, 2009.
Mensah Sarbah Hall,
University of Ghana, Legon.