Owá Cave on Idanre Hills- The House of a Thousand Bats
Beneath a massive outcrop,
The earth opens wide its buttocks
Like a torn mouth, it farts the odour of bat’s guano.
Across the gloomy expanse,
Mini vampires parade the air like vultures around a cadaver.
Regarded as King among the numerous ‘Iho’ in the city of inselbergs,
Yet so humble it reposes in the solitary canopies of Onipepeye enclave.
An ambience of fear mixed with awe and wonder embrace my sweaty skin,
This aura so stymieing yet so hying:
”A night that didn’t fall in my presence,
How do I tread its gloomy darkness?”, I ask myself.
Dogged and undaunted I proceed,
Its stygian recesses swallow me.
Like the sword of Excalibur, sharp rays of sunlight pierce the expanse from a distance,
Splashes of thick treacly substance smear boulders of granite,
To touch, I dare not,
To sit, I fear much.
Devoured,
In the belly of the gloomy aviary,
Its inhabitants,
They greet me with ecstatic calls,
Their melodies, mixed with the sound of rushing spring waters exuding from within the cavern…
Escalate my rising admiration,
My admiration of this awe-inspiring work of nature…
Dexterously crafted by an enigmatic potter.
A mysterious piece of art He did make,
Latched away in a mountainous jungle,
The lush jungles of Idanre- the city of Inselbergs.
(Owá Cave is located in the pristine forests of Idanre Hills, Ondo State, Nigeria)
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Idanre Hills- The City of Caves and Inselbergs
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