When will we tire of waiting?
by Yewande Omotoso


When will we tire of waiting?
Waiting for the right day to protect the seed
Yesterday hanging on the low branch
Today hanging on the high branch
Tomorrow unreachable
Then gone.

Every day onwards is now.
Every day past is now too.

Tomorrows were lost the first time we took the guts and called them gold.
Will it be too late to find Tomorrows the day we relearn the true value of guts left unmined
and call the unborn seeds golden?

Listen to the poem read out loud by the author

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Sprouts that grew from this seed

Yewande Omotoso is an architect, with a masters in creative writing from the University of Cape Town. Her debut novel Bomboy (Modjaji Books, 2011), won the South African Literary Award First Time Author Prize. Her short stories include “How About The Children” (Kalahari Review), “Things Are Hard” (Caine Prize Anthology, 2012), “Fish” (The Moth Literary Journal) and “The Leftovers” (One World Two). Yewande was a 2015 Miles Morland Scholar. Her second novel The Woman Next Door (Chatto and Windus, 2016) was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award and longlisted for the Baileys Women’s Literature Prize. Her third novel An Unusual Grief (Cassava Republic) is due out in November 2021. Yewande is a Storyteling Advisor for Greenpeace International.

Photos used on this page were provided by Yewande Omotoso.