Unsung Heroines

The sun is searing hot
Hurling down fierce fuming rays. 
Earth roasts under his angry gaze 
As meat over blazing coals. 
Everything bows in submission 
Men, birds, beasts, and beetles 
Trees, shrubs and every blade of grass 
Droops in defeat and compliance.

On this sweltering March noon ablaze
Upon a deserted path in defiance,

A solitary figure lumbers on.
Bent forward with a stern grit, with
A double load of wood and flesh,
Labouring on, towards
The distant din of a village market!

Read: Village Boy Impressions - Fathers

A mother, with her mewling infant

And a hefty load of firewood

Trudging to the market

To buy salt and pepper 

That she may feed her family!

Her man, probably lounging in a bar

Had shoved at her a basket of millet

With nothing else for soup.

She had gone to the mortar

To thresh that millet with sore palms

And upon her grinding stone 

Milled it all into flour.

She went to the river with a big pot

Till all the bigger pots at home brimmed over. 

But not before she had swept 

All the house and compound, 

Mended every crack and crevice, 

Scrubbed every cheng[1] and chimoin[2] spotless 

And pounded her rags in the river soap-less.

Read: Village Boy Impressions - Loved at A Glance

There she goes down the burning path! 

Along the wearied unwavering road, 

With hardly enough cover for her feet 

Bleeding from the blistering path. 

For the journey did not start from home 

Though it began there in the morning 

When she rose at cock crow for the forest 

And tore through thorns and stumps 

To gather the precious firewood 

That she cannot afford to use at home 

But must of need send to the market 

So that she could buy salt and pepper 

That her children may not sleep hungry. 

The little tot that she carries 

She will feed and cuddle and treat 

Blow his nose with her mouth, 

Clean and cover his lidless rectum, 

Till he becomes one day a man,  

To shout and rave and rant at her 

And beat her up in drunkenness 

To show that he is a man. 

Read: - The Giant that Walked this Earth

She will return down this road

Jostling with many other mothers 

Destined for smoke-filled kitchens 

Dimly lit by smoking kerosene lamps 

To stir saab for hungry mouths. 

Whilst the men wait upon the rooftops 

With peppers and gin in their blood 

Impatient to leap upon them 

Like locusts upon fresh green saplings 

And thrust them full of more little babies

Hail the women! Hail the mothers! 

Hail the unsung heroines of the land! 

They are… 

the blood that waters the plains green 

the manure that feeds our crops 

the donkeys that carry our loads 

the wood that feeds our cooking fires 

the breasts that nourish our young 

the menders of our walls 

the nurses of our aged 

the housekeepers 

the dishwashers 

the laundry machines 

and so on without end…

they are the women that make us men 

Hail the mothers! Hail!

Plastering the walls of a compound

You may also read this poem here

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[1] Earthenware bowl that usually holds soup

[2] Calabash bowl that usually holds TZ.