Let me ask mother
I stopped the tears but they flowed
What now?
Mother, you held me on the shoulders.
And I recited in my small boy voice
That men don’t cry and their tears dried
When Murungu made them
Their wells emptied out
Mother but I have seen the sky somersault
The sun has stood right above my head
My bald head caked and baked
Thunder clapped in my ears
And then I was overwhelmed
My wells by miracle filled up
They rose to the brim
But mother, I stood speedily
Looked away and wiped them
For men do not cry
What I never asked is, mother even
When the sky comes crashing on them
They stand straight when the world sits on their shoulders?
Am I still the man you raised or did this baptise me
Baptise to be the sissy son who lets tears catch them
Mother, tell me.
Should my children still call me father?
Am I to sit in the baraza meetings?
And my beard will I still keep it
Or I will wake up with a smooth chin
Without any hair strand sprouting from
And the village wake up to my gone beard
I will not scream I will be mute
Men have no lungs to scream
Their deepest emotions to be hidden
But mother tell me
I saw no what no two eyes should see
I trod on path no two feet should set upon
And mother I wiped them as quickly as I could
Tell me mother, who refilled the dry well
That I want dry like ever
For men don’t cry.
Tell me
