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