Bio
Julius Morno is an author and filmmaker from Nigeria. He is a graduate of the National Film Institute in Jos, Nigeria. Julius has attended many trainings and workshops at home and abroad in the areas of storytelling, scriptwriting and directing. Right from a young age, Julius has always been passionate about the writing of prose and poetry, a craft he has been honing even before going to film school. Julius Morno’s writings, mainly revolve around human stories, experiences and the human condition, themes that are always close to his heart.
Trigger Warning
This land is not for young dreamers
It’s twice as hard to produce good seeds
And thrice as hard for them to see the light of day
It is this wild Harmattan wind
It keeps blowing away the good seeds
Far beyond the fertile earth
Leaving them on the hard crusted surface
Only to be feasted upon by pests
To survive on this land is a miracle
We’ve not seen a drop of rain here in a while
Only the persistent dry wind that keeps raging
You have to keep ducking down
Shutting your eyes, covering your nose
And hiding behind walls
The land itself is a devastation
All that there is this parched plain
Filled with hungry faces with chapped lips
And endless monstrous roar of the raging wind
With strong waves blowing away any hope of a rain cloud
But very resilient species are emerging
With high capacity to survive the climate
A nightmare for every greedy pest
The seeds have developed thick skin over the years
Doing so much with so little water
I have seen seeds sprouting on rocks
Digging their roots deep beneath the cracks
Holding their ground and standing strong In the face of the evil wind
I’m hopeful that with more of these seeds
And if this continues
There will soon be a rebellion against the wind
The sprouting seeds are creeping and reaching out to one another
Touching tips, a bond is about to be formed
Yesterday
I tasted of its fruit It’s nothing like I’ve tasted before
But it is something beautiful, almost ethereal
But with a distant bitter aftertaste
That reminds you of the story of its struggle for survival