Love and Hope in Difficult Times

Though my Mother’s Misogyny Runs Deep

I‘ve grown enough not to hold it against her personally

In a lawless place with no books, films or music, Providing any other perspective Everything womanly she was told, Is in God’s sight A wound, a curse, a mark of Defilement And when a son’s protection makes for Heaven on earth Giving birth to healthy girls Is no consolation.

I was the third-born girl My mother didn’t want Well-meaning people said “Better luck next time” In the misogynistic social order Few people dared even wonder if A disobedient gir’s murder Was a crime All the while the white foreigners Like jackals joined in the fest To make life harder still With no power to protect Sometimes she displaced her rage Just like her orphaned mother On the blank slate Of her girls’ fate

Yes, in my younger days I raged And I reasoned To almost no avail What could get through to break The patriarchs’ variously modernised, Super-glued on old spell ? Bad girls end up burning, Forever in hell This was my mother’s constant refrain As in my search for liberation I broke ancient rules And though her patriarchally wounded self Came very close to it Still she never totally disowned me

Now my heart tells my head It’s time to rise above The intergenerational pain Though still, she favours her one precious son Boys will be boys will be Treacherous … These days I keep quiet and I don’t complain Now she’s ninety-one and all I do is Ask her where it hurts…

I give her massages galore Knowing what it feels like As a woman to be subjected to Constant war So in the quieter spaces of the eternal battleground Between good and evil (No, no no, I’m not being figurative) I go to her, bring her what she savours, Sights, tastes, textures and smells Green pistachios, ruby-red pomegranates, mangoes Orchid flowers and of course — ice-cream. “Kulfi”, she calls it and I enjoy her licking her lips Like an untamed child, when no-one’s looking.

What’s the point of the degrees in drawers? The books that line walls? Poetic musings and theatre trawls? If I can’t see behind and beyond my mother’s misogyny If I can’t shine with warmth and the light of love While daily splashing in the Stream of hope that I grow in strength to Find and embrace the child in her Before the Rules of the Fathers Terrorised her and Took her captive Nothin better to do when All the white liberals’ talk has turned to bitter Froth and foam and blather.

Enough of my musings She’s had her medicine and I’ve given her a massage We’re sitting close together on the sunroom sofa The sunshine’s pouring in like a blessing Now it’s time for the blueberries, the ice-cream And the fresh figs I picked from the garden The tree planted by my farmer father Whose nurturing instincts survived His 1960’s Emigration to the Cold and grey Land of Thieves Me, I’ve at last seen through all their Ivory tower origin Laboratory-grown fig leaves With fancy long-winded names like the Renaissance, the Enlightenment And Western Development Not to mention the other origin story of Adam and Eve As we grow tendrils of new truths we leave Behind all the Torah/Testament and Koranic tall tales About spare ribs and snakes

I find myself in love and hope I find myself between a tear and a smile And in the glow of another sunset The thought arises How many more are there left to share with her… I find myself in love and hope I find myself between a tear and a smile Feeding her blueberries and ice-cream. One spoon for her and one for me, See.

Sharing a brave re-interpretation of what religion should be about, is the article below by Kathy Ayers , that touched me deeply.

The article below by Noorain Ali helps to counter the messages that tell us to discount, marginalise or simply have little to do with the older generation as you have little to learn from them.

I’d also like to invite 🌬️Mitch, Farida Haque, Dr John Frederick Rose, My Lovely Suque and Patsy Fergusson to participate in Paper Poetry’s September prompt, Love and hope in difficult times… let’s get poetic with purpose!