Three Spoons September 12, 2008
Posted by Rethabile in sotho.Tags: lesotho poetry, poetry
6 comments
After she swallowed me, my mother,
swollen with me, looked for the proper place
to empty me, the pain of carrying me
harsh on her body, a weight in a child’s hand.
So she had me among wild poppies at the foot of her
bed, flowers with faces opening, and cactuses
arranged in a range of well-wishing brightness
smiling to welcome me. With a naked cry I arrived
and scribbled my name on the firmament.
When I was older, I met a woman who, like my mother,
couldn’t stomach lumps, and each time
we would lie there, sleeping or making love,
clinging like spoons, medicinal and clanking
like African shells, three spoons if you counted
the child, whose life was about to enter itself.
Our spines curved around its centre
as we lay together. Then one bright day,
near the 6th or 7th month, the elders
summoned us; we trekked to the village,
and the elders announced to us, to her, in
hushed but serious tones, that in her basin
was contained the life, the everlasting.
© Rethabile Masilo
Maya Angelou Reads September 9, 2008
Posted by Rethabile in culture, sotho.Tags: poetry
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