5. from Denmark With Tears To Zambia (For Maggie On Receiving The News Of His Dear Brother's Death) Poem by MATTHEW ADJEI

You came with me half the way,
But you did not complete your goodbye;
And your farewell message was choked mid-way
So you promised to continue with me
That sweet exchange of messages
In the Mabwe language only a dear kinsman
Can understand.

Then I carried with me the pot of our sweet dreams -
The sweet dreams of our childhood memories:
How we laughed by mother's fireside
As we exchanged the Kalulu tales,
And waited patiently for the scanty meal
So delicious that only siblings
Can understand.

And as I bore the pot of our sweet dreams mid-air,
Via the British Airways to Denmark,
I nursed your loving care
Delicate to me as the health of a pregnant woman.
And the love I bore for your welfare,
Only a dear sister
Can understand.

Then the news flashed too soon on the phone,
Thousands of miles from Zambia,
Through Africa, across the Mediterranean,
Through Europe to Denmark
And shook me like a frightened girl
Who has broken her pot of spring water;
And my biological pyramid crashed
With my thirty-nine years of nurtured love.

Now, will you tell me, dear love!
How does a stranger mourn in a strange land
For the loss of a pot broken at home?
Or what strange story do I return home to tell
Without my Ruth?
--- I went in full,
And I have returned empty.
Oh dear brother, what is my crime
In this strange fate of yours,
That you treat me so?