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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