Mother, A Witch?

Oluseyi Ogunbanwo
@oluseyiogunbanwo018093
13 days ago

Heavy with child, stressed at work
Severally insulted and put in the dock
With situation at home she could not take a walk
Sometimes she cleans, then she hawks

In penury, her children were reared
With every penny the world could share
Enduring the days of fasting and famine
Raised she a family strong and sanguine

Under her wings her chickens trust
No hawk nor eagle dare her chicks fright
Like a duck she keeps them in sight
With her snarl predators bite the dust

'I live because my children are alive'
'I work because they must survive'
'I sweat so they would not cry'
'I travail so they would live high'

No sickness feeble or ominous
No labour too base nor beneath her status
Her soul sold to her wards' survival
Her heart beats constantly when they need revival

With decades of trials and toil her three treasures emerged
The first and the third, females of peerless beauty
The second a male, described as a man of privileges
Leaving a mother with wearied hands of duty

'The black pot produces the white pudding' an adage says
Our daughter gainfully employed tied to a wealthy man
Our son, director of several companies, now a family man
The last, passed on in sickness, despite all care that came her way

But here lives mother in solitary, isolated, touted a witch
Her world became darker than the days of yore
Her objects of suffering now instruments of torture sees her a bitch
Her 'life investments' now her sources of depression leaving her sore

No thanks to dream interpreting assemblies
False prophets poisoning gullible minds!
Turning children against their parents
Destroying the cords that binds siblings!

Every bad dream a connotation of evil
Perpetrated by mother who is perceived a devil
So averts the crook who disguises as a prophet
His disciples swallow his bait and leaves Mother a suspect

May your labour never be in vain
Mama lived in penury, thrived in agony, departed in sorrow
Denied fellowship with her children, fed by strangers
Labelled a witch for whom she spent her life

Mother, a Witch? Is she? Why now?
What was she when for you her life she gave?
When for your needs her life was borrowed?
For your future hers was buried in the grave?

Lord our mothers thou shalt bless
Let them not beg for dress
Give them enough from cradle to grave
Let them not wait for sons and be brave


-Oluseyi Ogunbanwo

#poetry

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