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Date: | Sun, 2 Apr 2000 12:57:01 -0700 |
Content-Type: | TEXT/PLAIN |
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Mothers' Day 2000 by CAMERON DUODU
I never sent her
A Mother's Day card
Because she couldn't have read it-
Or so I told myself.
But was it a lie?
Don't countless thousands
Write letters to their
Illiterate folk
To be read for them
By others?
Oh, but "my feelings
Towards my mother
Are private;
No-one should be privy
To them."
Oh?
Was her love for you kept hidden?
Did she not walk behind you
Her stomach bulging with Bill;
Eight months pregnant,
Wasn't she?
Well, so it seemed
To your teenage
Embarrassed eye!
She walked with you
In the hot afternoon sun;
The road tarmac
So searing hot
It pulled the sole
Of both foot and
Footwear in an awkward squelch;
But did she feel shy?
Did her steps falter?
She walked into your school
And secured your reinstatement.
You had run off to Accra
In search of 'adventure':
To be 'the youngest taxi driver';
But she saw for you
A future greater than that.
So although labour could
Force itself upon her
In the lorry
On its eight-mile journey
On a bumpy road,
Or as she walked the half-mile
Along that road
In the hot sun,
She walked you to the school.
And Headmaster Mr Dadzie,
So beloved of his pupils
That they named him
'Kwame Achacha'
(The hunchbacked One)
Even though his back was straight;
Did not wicked 'Kwame Achacha'
Gazing at her sweaty face
And her pregnant delicateness
Jettison his monster's
Persona and take pity
On you and re-inscribe
Your name in the register
Without so much
As administering one stroke
Of his sadist's cane
On your shaking buttocks?
Was her action
The product of hidden love?
She didn't care
Who witnessed her love for you
But you thought
Someone else reading
Your words to her
Would rob her of them!
So you robbed both
By not sending any words at all!
And now
Two years on,
When she's vanished
From the face
Of the earth
You wish she were here
This Mother's Day
To hear these words from you:
Mother I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you!
You did try to say it with cloth, yes;
You often said it with cash;
And it was always in your eyes
When you embraced her;
But was it enough?
Yes-I think she knew
And oh yes - I think she knows
Even today
That I cry tears
When a face reminds me of hers;
Or -- when she just flits
Across my mind's eye
To take over
Whatever it is
That I am thinking.
I think this explains it all:
Mother, you were me
And I am you!
Ours is a bond
Beyond any words
And pictures
That a mere card can carry;
And will remain
Ever thus.
Oh Mother.
My dear dear Mother.
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