Drums of Tears

Swayed with swindling and a dangling taste of love
Not by strangers or people of far distances though
but my own people; My village and my lineage!
Those I surely believe in with all my blood.
Swamped and tied to the baobab tree, in the centre of my village
My tears and my crying seem lesser than a penny
Crying daily in our own language and way
Doomed even with the onlook of my own children.
I am here seated naked and
with strenuous robes borrowed from a neighbour
They say they love me, they care!
Yet, I am tied to the tree.
For years now, my tears dropped in buckets of blood
have never convinced anyone to act
Maybe, they too are lost in thought and ideas, a village doomed
Spending my lonely nights in cold and heat.
The cold, the fear and all the care so mingled in the dark
I am sinking without end, daily!
My children raised in agony and
the bravery of a deranged mother.
I am a crazy mother, as they say- cared for at the trunk of a tree, no home
Where is my room?
I know we have many emptied rooms
But those rooms are too clean for my use —
but I am cared for.
For fouls, I am their destiny caretaker
My only friends are the gods and goddesses
Who have betrayed my life for all these years
Fate has done me well.
They called me a mad woman
I own not even my children — not even myself
My children’s love swindling in my blood
Chased and dangled daily, loving only the good-old-days.
Others are healed- when man favours a solution
For me, I am tied to the tree
A madwoman fit only to give birth to genius
And here my fate ends forever- no care-no love- and I to the end of my world.

