Ballad for Tendai (My late mom)
She is gone
she has breathed her last,
her first son is visibly stressed,
and in pain
for she is gone
Tendai is no more.
She is gone
gone with the wind
gone like a wisp
of thin smoke
in the hot breeze of a sad summer
just before a destuctive rainy spell
on an African plateau
Her parents are invisibly stressed
secretly blaming the Great Spirit,
for taking their black jewel
their child, a child they raised
hoping to be kept warm,
by their daughter, Tendai
But Alas!
Tendai is no more,
gone like the cigarette dad has tossed
into the dirty-green pool outside
Gone,
Like a thought that has been forgotten
They are sad she’s gone,
but will they ever know
those who killed her
before she even died
those who bought her soul
and promised abundance
but never gave.
Those who never fathered
the children they gave her
The pain she went through.
as a girl, innocent, naive.
Gullible,
Gone, she is,
and forever gone
Let us never forget
her unfathered children
children she mothered
until the city life smothered her
Tendai is gone,
fought a good fight
died a sad death
The roof caves in
for her children
But hope is in their big eyes
innocent like their mother's
yet ignorant of their father's
They watch, the casket
sink deeper, go further
into a dead destiny.
Tendai