Envelope My Love To Mama

My mother’s hut is far along the coast of the forests.

It is not counted among the other huts.

For her hut spelt I-S-O-L-A-T-I-O-N in full caps.

When little,

I’d ask why we lived so far from town. No answer ever quenched my thirst to belong.

I itched to play pilolo, ampe – The games of my clayed infancy, with friends.

But Mama seemed to have wanted different. Her thatch hut was quiet like the streams.

It was the tidiest I had ever seen. She calls it her universe; her very own world –

Her treasures: pots, pans and countable bundles of kente laid across the walls.

She wove beautiful tunics and beaded for celebrations without calendar.

Oh, Mama lived her days like a feast that never ends.

She defined aloneness as beauty woven with strands of peace.

Her bravery and courage always resound, even in her calm and quiet countenance.

She was grace. All these I now admire

after treading the earth alone, far from home – far from Mama.

Now, her gems sparkle. I need answers no more!

Mama lived her best life devoid of societal expectations and unhealthy norms and bonds.

Here I am in my own hut, I guess I have turned out just like her. And I miss her so!

Give me paper, give me ink, give me a feather.

And let me pen Mama my love. How I wish to walk into her warmly hut,

and find her knitting her tunics with mumbles of a melody only she can hymn…

And sweep her in a hug – never letting go! Oh, winds,

Envelope my love to Mama on your wings that never betray…

Whispers,

“Happy Mother’s Day!”