IF I HAD LISTENED TO MAAME (CRAZY STANZAS)

​

If I had listened to maame

I won’t be stuck in the middle of this road of life

Carrying a burden that my shoulder breaks

One that has taken over my sanes

Farming bloody rains around my once starred eyes

II

She did tell me not all that glitters are metalsmithable

And adviced I cleaned, bit into, burned

To verify authenticity before singing the Hallelujah of worship

No matter the wings and shine of my find

Did I listen?

III

The sun preyed on my fancy

And connived with all the garbage in shinning stones

Winking in blinking into my sinking

So I picked what was not

Thinking it was what was

Now I stink so bad

On a heavenly road whose scent mask me out

IV

How can youth so blind

Making this head turn behind 

Even when legs pull?

How can age not be shed

Like skins which outlive their time

To fetch rightness in the past?

How can perfection so wrinkle

In time’s deadly exploration

In giving surprised heart attacks?

How can remorse not be a magician

To right all wrong in all that is strong?

How could I have been deaf to youthful exuberance

Letting maame’s voice go

With the deadly winds of the past?

V

If I had

If only I had

If only I had listened to maame

If only I had honoured the words of my vehicular womb

Earth would certainly have been kinder

Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia © Jan. 26, 2018