WHO DIED FOR OUR SINS - OYINDAMOLA sHOOLA

2/4/2019

An EXCERPT FROM "BUT HERE YOU ARE"

Tonight, instead
of planning dinner,
a mother planned
her daughter’s funeral.

Like it is done to sacrifice,
she dissected her heart
and served her memories
to the longing ears
of consolations.

As her teeth grated seasonings
of darkness she tries to
scrape out God from
all the corners of this
moment that she could find.

Maybe God needed
to pick a few of our sorrows
from earth and this mother’s child's
feet were the perfect set
of f(or)(uc)ks for it.

“Is this God way of typing
a s p a c e b a r
in my biography?”
this mourning mother asks.

In prescriptions
to keep her spirit calm
a friend said,
“have you tried
thoughts and prayers?”
But some are too
religiously blind to see
that this needs more
than getting better
or curing or healings or miracles.

Last night, the fingers
that used to set the table
before father arrives
was swinging her arms
at her rapist
and killer in defense
and the voice that calls
everyone to dine
has been sown
into the shadows
of these past hours.

Tomorrow, her name will change
and marry an #hashtag,
it will be signed as headlines
on the new-s of your lips
as if this too, isn’t one of the old
things we have tried to bury
underneath our tongues
that has reincarnated
through another woman’s body.

On Sunday,
this will become
a saint and moral lesson
for the other girls
who are yet to imagine
that injustice against who they are
is just a quicker route to heaven
and she will resurrect
in the prayers
of older men and women
who rebuke this sorrow.

Forever, her name
will drown in her mother’s blood
and become buried in her bones.
There is nothing
that can prepare
a parent for
their child's bodies
laying underneath
headstones of death
no matter how beautiful;
not even love
is brave enough
to teach a mother how.

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3 Comments

Tope link

9/4/2019 07:41:04 am

Wow. Deep. An apt description of the sorrows of a mother over a dead child.

Sokuma Theophilus Mshelia

20/4/2019 01:10:41 pm

Wow! I totally loved this. I love the many themes this poem tries to cover; a mother's grief after her child was raped and killed. The line where the mother asks if this is God's way of typing a space bar into my biography gripped me. It's even sad to think that people make grieving seem as something wrong. Something to pray away.
How quick are we to type the hashtag just because it's trending on twitter but when the situation arises and we need to make a stand, we run or is it easier to hide behind hash tags? Or how we tell other girls to be careful so they don't end up like the murdered girl. How her story becomes a moral story to dissuade other guys. How we forget to talk about the man that raped and killed the girl. Or is that truth too heavy for our tongues to hold? The last verse broke my heart. Nothing can prepare a mother to the idea of losing her child. Not even love. The depth of this poem. How it talks about a lot in just few lines. I'm so downloading this e-book. Thank you so much for this

Michael

29/4/2019 09:16:50 am

I had to read a second time. Strong narratives.