Dead Birth Mothers Poem by Dela Bobobee

Daily she hummed her favourite unknown tune
laboriously she scooped morsels of bean cakes
in skillful similar proportions into the sizzling oil
in the frying pan on a clay hearth emitting smoke
blinking tears she stocked the embers of the fire
to lessen the spirals of blinding thick black smoke
as frightened termites scrambled from the woods
to escaped the inevitable death in the cruel flames

Ola, the hectic mother of half a dozen stunted kids
sold delicious bean cakes to all hungry passersby
to put meager food on the table for her large family
while her lazy husband roamed the street scouting
for inexistent menial jobs scanty enough for a gulp

tired nights drawn her protests in wet muffled cries
to fight powerlessly against her husbands insistence
for a piece of pinkish plunge add more hungry mouths
her cries, pleas fell on deaf ears until she took in again
but this time around she wasn’t that lucky to wean kid
on the long way to the midwifery she died with a sigh

man’s inhumanity to man starts from the nuclei home
when brutes with ill animalistic tendencies dominate
wallow in the stupid aphorisms of “it’s a man’s world”
but what cruel world is that so insensitive to changes
which is the only permanent phenomenon in lifetimes
that wreaked so much pains and sorrows to women
and bring death to women that brought them to life?
if humans are driven by physical appetites rather than
spiritual needs then let Father’s Day be scrapped
and extol instead Birth Dead Mother’s Day to mourn
the dearth of compassion in compunction of mortality.

Written by
Dela Bobobee©