Mothers

A great mother
hollowed by grief
on the cusp 
of the darkest
deepest
descent into hell
once bled these words


I will not die today
I have much to do and say


Yet her skin
crawled
under the touch
of raw chicken-like flesh
colonial fingers
invaded every part of her


Mother’s mother’s mother
wanted to cease every breath
send it back to the ancestors
across the seas
where the crumbling bones 
of generations without end
lay in gently moulded red earth
waiting patiently for her to join them


spinning through tight years 
of unshed tears 
she foresaw
her loose cocoa and dasheen coloured children
unmoored
lighter and brighter
each generation
never passing the
paper bag test


her flesh
my flesh


her bones
my bones


her blood
my blood


one drop of her blood 
too powerful 
to ignore


one drop of her blood 
enough to hold 
her people
mudbound 
in a foreign land


Mother’s mother’s mother
labelled colonial chattel
unwillingly constructed as
the final bridge to our once uninterrupted history




her blood
my blood


so powerful
she stayed
in a foreign land
of sharp unfamiliar pain


she told my mother’s mother


You will not die today
You have much to do and say

Mother’s mother’s mother prophesied
about me
me … an unborn future
part of her
she did not know


Mother’s mother’s mother told them
not to die
to root
to grow old and grey
she told them 
to echo 
echo 
echo her
until
they re-captured
their own light
walked their own path
carved their own history
as she was taught
at her mother’s knee


ballooned by distant hope


she said
reshape you future
with your own hands
echo
echo
echo me
she said


The ever rising sun
bears witness
to her story


keloid scars remain
like flares
through the universe


centuries 
of invading 
lands
homes
bodies
breaking sacred bonds 
like China cups on rough seas


history repeats
yet they continue to fail
to colonise 
my mind
for great-great-oh-so-great grandma
stayed
in me


my strong line
of great mothers
stayed alive
pressed paper thin 
stayed alive
teaching in the shadows
stayed alive
carving furrows of hope
in blood-soaked soil


Mother’s mother’s mother
who stayed alive
 
for me
to be
me


We will not die today
We have much to do and say




January 2021
For Mummy - thank you.