Mother To Son: Divinity Within

 Copyright 2012 K.Omodele

This fog-filled Sunday morning, just one hour after the cock did crow, a mother snatches some dung-smeared eggs right from under a fowl and runs some stand pipe water over them. She storms through a back door clutching three warm eggs, tracking mud on the hand-polished, hardwood floor with her Bata slippers.

She sits the eggs inna old enamel bowl and turns to her son and squares off, hand akimbo. Brows dig furrows while her eyes fling daggers at her eleven-year old boy. 
He lowers his eyes.
She wrinkles her mouth around a word but then press her lips taut as a goat-skin drum.

"Un-GOD-ly? So they say." 

She jabs a finger in his chest with every thumping syllable.  

"I more spiritual than whole heap ah hypocrite wha' you see go to church every week, whether 'pon Sat'day or two time 'pon Sunday. Ah sure I more righteous than thiefin' Parson Brown with them t'ree pickney and t'ree different babymother outta di same damn congregation."

Her son's back is pressed against the rough, board wall.

"Mek ah tell yuh dis, mih Son! See here, going to church don't mek nobody Godly or righteous. Nuff ah them in church 'pon Sunday, dirty and bad mind. I don't have to go to nobody church to pray; live and treat people good. Yuh have One single Almighty but plenty ways fi express yuh love for Him. Every church want say their way is the one an' only way. That is wha' yuh call religion an' doctrine. I don't deal with religion; I deal with culture. Seven culture have seven different ways of expressin' love for The Mos' High. But, Son,  when yuh want talk to God, if yuh really want talk to HIM and feel HIM, don't bother look around out deh  for HIM."  

She  grips his sagging shoulder firm with one hand, but caresses his chest gently with the next. 

"Yuh muss find Jah within yuh heart, mih Son. A church will only give you belief an' faith.The pastor or di priest can tell you bout rituals and rites. How after the cow jump over di moon, she drop dead and mek horse fat. But yuh want find spirituality? Know yourself and yuh will find divinity within."
The boy pick up his chin off his chest, hoists it up high.

Copyright 2012 K.Omodele

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When Things Fall Apart

 When Things Fall Apart

©K.Omodele

Each day I see the effects of the absence of men/fathers/husbands from families in our communities. It is apparent in my neighborhood with the little boys who scurry the street at close to midnight. It is evident when my own blood sister's eyes squint tight with frustration 'cause her little man got into trouble at school. Another sistren's young daughter talks about her Dad constantly, but hasn't seen him in 'bout a year. Seems like everywhere I turn, absentee fathers leave their marks-things fall apart.

When we gone, things fall apart in some way or another. The family fabric is altered when we're not there and some Sisters struggle on their own, many resorting to hustling or food stamps to supplement meager single incomes. They struggle alone in five-season old dresses and patch up-patch up jeans. Drag our seed around with them in mini vans, subway cars, or putt-puttering twelve-year -old Mirages, dropping the children off at day cares (they can barely afford) or family members. Then, they rush off to cash registers or  mop closets or clerk desks or,  community colleges if they're lucky.

From Lagos to Linden, London to LA, when fathers disappear children become some department's statistics. Often, girls grow into fractured women and boys into inmates. I KNOW. I'm sure you know, too, what happens to our families when things fall apart.

Bredren, Love our sistahs/Big up di Sistren! Mentor a child!
Or get the hell out the way.

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• Floetry Friday ~ Longing For? - Kaya Omodele (jonellg.wordpress.com)

Mommy Frock is Bulletproof

My Mother is a radics, a radical. When I was a little boy she wore tie-dye and batik dresses, African-themed garments and a soul-shouting Afro that was 'bout two or three sizes too big. She was a single mother pushing herself through school riding on a student visa, balancing an off-the-books job, with a little rug-rat clinging to her frock tail (that's me). She didn't have much, but she had a plan and a good head on her shoulders.
One day, right as she picked me up from school, some man was shooting somebody because of something right in front the school. The shots shocked me. But then Mommy tucked me into her hip, somehow, and we tear up that little side road. I'll never forget thinking Mommy frock is bulletproof.
As I got older, I start turn wild. Two days before I took Common Entrance* I got sent home from school. My teacher did split the class into girls 'gainst boys for a kind of trivia game. I kept throwing up my hand to answer before any of the Girls, but would Ms. Harper pick me? Hell no. So I gently stated, "You only tekking** up for them ca you a girl too!" You coulda hear a fly piss pon piece a cotton, 'cause by the way, Ms. Harper was also the Head Mistress of my Primary school. We marched to d'office where I pushed up my chest and declared, "I am not taking no caning!"
I plodded home with the fingers of the Wrath wrapped 'round mi throat, thinking I had a few hours to think before Mommy come home and tear off my rass. But she was there for lunch. Why God?
Two days before common entrance.
She pulled up her nurse's whites, sprinted down into the yard and grab up a rod of correction. Beat me straight back to Ms. Harper- d'office.
It's amazing how I carry her with me.

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Mother To Son: Go Read a Book!

Drawing property rights to The Abeng.../ YardCore Int'l, Publishing

Copyright 2010 K. Omodele

One sun-parched, Third World July noon, a mother scurries around a metal-creaking kerosene stove, simmering curry chicken and white rice in enamel pots when she notices her eleven-year old son fingering a string, making diamonds.
Mother to Son:
“Boy, yuh bored, nuh?”
He snorts but doesn’t look up.
“If yuh bored, go and read a book! You can travel round the world in a book.”
The boy throws away the string. “OK, Mummie.”

Years later in Foreign, one January evening with the mercury sinking two degrees below zero, she’s stirring up marrow-heating soup with provisions and dumplings. He’s in his mid-teens and she refuses to buy more than one T.V., which she locks and keys in her bedroom.
“You won’t be like the typical American pickney*, nursing on no boob tube. This thing dims out yuh wits. It too visual. It show and tell you what to think, so yuh don’t even use your imagination to picture what nice piece a chicken would look like, smell like. I want yuh wonder and envision what a Andorran sunset look like, why blood deh in George Jackson eye, what Gambia mussy** feel like to Kunta Kinte. I don’t want yuh depend on the T.V. to show you.”
“Mummie, everybody I know in school got a T.V. in their room. We living in Foreign now. Is Foreign.”
“And wha happen to that? Well then read a foreign book, then. You not getting no T.V. in yuh room. Hear me, GO READ A BOOK!”

One morning three years later he’s taking this girl, Missy, home from Days Inn after a night that began in a dancehall with her gazing at his rope chain. He pulls his BMW up outside The Blue Nile across the street from Howard University. He doesn’t live with Mummie anymore and now three T.V.’s sit like Great Propagators around his apartment.

The girl’s eyes furrow. “What you stop here for?”

She half hides a chuckle and hurries behind him into the bookstore.

He nods at the girl behind the counter, “Morning,” and heads straight to the new releases where he snatches up Assata Shakur’s autobiography and marches back to the counter.

As he hands the book to the cashier, he feels Missy stare. He glares back.

She says, “I don’t mean no harm but I ain’t never known no nigga that bought no book.” She glances around the Blue Nile. “Shit, I ain’t never been with no nigga in no bookstore.”

He winces while paying fifteen dollars for the book. “You still ain’t.”

“Ain’t what?”

“Been with no nigga in no bookstore.” He spat. “I ain’t no nigga, dutty gyal***” He can feel Mummie grimacing.

The cashier gives him his change and a grin.

The girl catches her jaw before it hits the ground. “You look like a nigga to me!” she says, snaking her neck.

“And you sound like a dutty gyal to me. Go read a book, any book.”

He two-steps out the door, the girl at his heels.

*child
**must be

***dirty girl

Copyright 2010 K.Omodele


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Mother To Son

copyright 2010 K. Omodele

trademark The Abeng/Yardcore International, Inc.

A frustrated mother says to her eleven year-old son:
"Son, know this: a farmer don’t just plant, so. Is a long, drawn out process to grow good crop- it don’t just happen -BUDUPS- outta de blue, it tek (takes) work and diligence.

First, you as the farmer must burn down all trees and bush over de land. Then, after that, till the earth-and that mean turn it over wid a big fork or machine and make up some beds of soil. Then yuh have to prepare and fertilize the soil with manure and dung, which in itself is a bitch ‘ca (because) it stink so to high heaven. Is a shitty task, Son, but essential beca good crop don’t grow in unfertile soil. And if not manure then compost, which can be dead fish head and banana peel, orange peel anything so.

So now after that, when you as de farmer done prepare the soil, tek yuh seed and plant dem in a drum, pan or can or something so. When they sprout up, yuh nurture dem into seedlings. After the seedling dem catch, den yuh transplant dem into the soil beds and then the real nurturing and nourishing start- water, preening, all dem type a thing. You can’t just expect them fi grow so- wild weed will come and choke dem. So you must keep weeding out bad growth from round dem as the grow. And after all that, you might get a good crop and not bad breed.

So, Son, yuh see how much preparation and work and care go into planting a good crop? GOOD! Then is the same thing when you want find a woman and plant a seed in her… yuh cyaan (can’t) just fling good seed in any soil so. You must tek time and mek sure her soil well nourishing, meaning that she will nurture yuh seed when it grow. Take yuh time! And, Son, careful: some soil wha look rich might be poison! So, watch and mind how yuh flinging yuh seed!

One more thing…pay attention, Pickney! Whenever you do go plant a seed, be like the
good farmer; meaning, TEK CARE MIND IT WHILE IT GROW!"


copyright 2010 K. Omodele

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