I

Does my whiteness
prejudice my worth to this continent
where I first breathed
and the sound cuddled my tiny ear
like the blink of a soft jacaranda petal?
Does my forced exile
compromise the sense of belonging
to this land of lost fathers
whom I buried in grief too early -
though is never the right time for farewells?
I elected my space according to
emotion not geography
feeling not citizenship
intellect not borders.
I though myself as an illegal seed
carried in a borrowed womb
for mysterious reasons that eludes
the logic of the thought.
Elephants migrate spreading seeds in foreign lands
the wind blows above the soil
carrying a bunch of tiny gems
feeding new horizons,
why shouldn’t I be having the same journey?
A seed launched out of circumstances…
There comes a time you got to kill your mother
to find your own belonging
shrug off the virginity of a safe place
embed in a different landscape:
love doesn’t have to coincide with blood
there’s a natural sentiment that comes along
ignoring given bonds.

I have two mothers:
my biological mother looks like me
pale and strong bodied,
she is mother one,
it’s not priority!
My other mother is brown like the soil
with a golden shade between her eyebrows
her name is Sera,
MamaSera,
she is mother two,
a mere issue of chronological Time!
Mother one speaks one language and a half
Mama Sera can speak four languages.
Mother one studied till twenty-one
Mama Sera just finished primary school
Mother one travelled a lot
Mama Sera never left her country.
Mother one doesn’t have time
Mama Sera is full of time
Mother one pretends to be a good painter
Mama Sera is an excellent storyteller but she doesn’t pretend
Mother one follows the wind for convenience
Mama Sera stays always against the wind.
That’s how Mama Sera became my mother.
It was the time when History didn’t match with justice
and segregation made lives fall apart
dividing people by
color
race
ethnicity
minority
it was the time when History kidnapped people lives
swallowed in a cell underneath,
Jo’burg was burning behind the walls built
to secure the wardens’ lives;
waving their phallus they pleased their ego
entering the unlocked doors of the dreamer’s sleep.
But you were there, Mama Sera,
you were there everyday
from Alexandra township walking your body
like the gentle flame of a candle
on the shores of daily aspirations
to clean the sense of unease
that history has weaved on this patch of land
so fertile of life ‘n love.
Nobody, a part from myself,
knows how secretly
I dreamt of an equal dialogue
between my two mothers.
I longed for a love that would not be defeated by roles,
a love that could be one and inseparable
but life has chosen for me
Mama Sera
to be you my spiritual mother.

II

That’s how Mama Sera
Became my second mother:
She did not feed my stomach
she fed my imagination.
She did not carry me in her arms
she showed me the direction for the day
I could be strong enough to walk on my own.
She did not wash my face out of the sleep
she gave me a cup filled of water
and sang me the song of the rivers who travel all their way
to wash the surface of the mighty ocean
from losses and oblivion.
She didn’t lace my shoes
instead stood by my side encouraging me to do it myself
regardless to my tears of shame.
She did not bring me gifts for Christmas
she let me sit on her lap and tell me stories
where the hero wasn’t a beard old man sliding on the snow
but a child who walked three miles to fetch water and who
along the road met the ghost of his grand father
who saluted him playing the sacred drum.
She did not push me to my dreams with Cinderella’s league,
she encouraged the ancestor’s to bring me stories from the old times.
She didn’t wish me happy birthday,
but chanted the reasons why we should be celebrating our life every day,
in struggle and peace -
celebration is a luxury of the losers – she said.
She didn’t fill my schoolbag with milk for the day
but taught me responsibility for the things I care.

III

I ‘ve spent afternoons staring at the cupboard
where you kept your personal things
clothes, old magazines and the box of perfumes
you received your first day of work,
someone assumed you needed to have one
and on the fundaments of this assumption
all of a sudden, I embarked on an unlike ship.
I started secretly, intimately, sailing on a different sea
driven by a sense of unease
which attempted to pollute my love for you.
That’s how you became my second mother.
I’ve spent bunches of time thinking weather
I should just open the door and throw those perfumes away
cause the idea that made them to be there
was struggling with my love and sense of understanding.
For this I loved you more
and you became my second mother.
I’ve spent all my lunches sitting by your side,
close to the kitchen window where the stove stood
generous of steamy pots
I ate from your hand the sweet pap dipped in hot chilly gravy,
the food you were asked to prepare for me
wasn’t appealing to my taste.
I did an effort eating two meals
but I did, for the privilege
to remain still in maternal complicity with you
and for this I loved you more
and you became my second mother.
I played with my brother Tumelo.
When I was sick you brought him home
to fill my loneliness
playing kudoda and laughing and crying.
Empathy acts in mysterious ways.

IV

Time has delivered an answer to the life I espoused
and I’m back
I came to look for your face
Mama Sera.
To mirror my wonder in your eyes
to caress your skillful hands.
I came back to listen more songs
and stories.
I came back to see my brothers and sisters
who grew in the secrecy of my room
fearless and curious.
I came back to sit at the same table eating together
the dreamt food of my childhood
remembering the two of us sitting by the stove
eating pap from the pot
while the food on the table
was getting cold and tasteless.
I came back to tell you I managed to break the chains of my exile
That I came back to stay
That I had encountered the fear of loss
That I faced the judgment of the ignorant.
That after sipping all the tears of sorrow
I engaged with my life.
Strengthened my bones I chose
hardship out of hypocrisy and mediocrity.
I came to tell you that I’m your child,
never lost,
just suspended in a limbo land
waiting to bring you something
you could be proud of
but you have already gone.
I wanted to be sure I existed in your life
as well as you existed in mine -
memory needs a double check.
Outside in the field where we used to walk side by side
I have drawn a big face with the golden shade between the eye browses,
it was the sun that marked your skin
– you said in delight
so that you could enlighten your children’s journey
towards freedom
in those arrogant days where freedom wasn’t available.
I’m one of your children and I found my path,
the destination you aimed for us.
Barefoot, in countless sunny days, you taught me
to feel before thinking
to think before judging
to never make room for ate
to trust myself
when I cannot trust others.

You’re now my memory
I’ll dig in the earth and deposit my seed
deep inside
I’ll send it to the future
so that your grand children
will foster love and gratitude.
Like a tree I will stand waiting for the birds
to lay on my branches and feed my lelhala.
Hours, days and weeks will shift in other rooms of time
while nostalgia will nourish your absence.

* Valentina Acava Mmaka, a writer and human rights activist, blogs at http://valentinammaka.blogspot.com