'MOTHERHOOD AND THE NUMBERS GAME' by Ama Ata Aidoo.

Since I couldn't find Aidoo's poem- 'Motherhood and the Numbers Game' when I searched for it in the Google, I thought of writing the same on my blog. You can get this below:

Motherhood and the Numbers Game

                                                - Ama Ata Aidoo.

'Now
that I am suffering so much
I know I am truly a mother,'

said
Egyeifi to the other screaming
woman

2 painfully hoarse voices
still managing to bellow like
cows in an abattoir;
4 veins swollen to
sizes larger than the
2 necks they stood on.

'meda w'ase
meda w'ase
 meda w'ase...
osiande,
ama meehu de,
saana moso
maawo!'

I always marvelled at the
non-logic
of it all,

and even managed
the educated lady's dainty grin
the day
they told me that in all the
20 years I was away,
my mother never slept a wink!

The woman who spoke
-my mother's friend-
stared straight into my eyes
bespectacled already
as it seems,
all eyes must be
20/20 visioned or not, when
folks turn 40 at the very least.

So
at 2 in the morning
I lie here in the dark
more sharp-eyed than
the cat my totem:

anxious
angry
sleepless-

blissfully anxious
happily angry and
nervously fulfilled

that

I
too
am
a mother.