Poetry: Pontso Kane

Pontso Kane

TO MY FATHER

Those who do not know you,

Come with their red pens held high,

To penalise your grammar with double underlines,

Not knowing that your ministry,

Is not some English Language class,

Or a Linguistics lecture hall!

When you say "Good morning" at 9 P.M,

They think maybe that you are mistaken,

They correct you with a sugar-coated "Good evening man of God",

Not aware that that is not just a "good morning",

But it is a "good morning" from my father,

And my father is the prophet!

When you step into your ministerial office,

The time of the day or night does not matter,

And the grammatical correctness of sentences,

Becomes a thing for the Professors of English,

What matters is the power,

Of words you speak,

Which is inspired by the anointing bestowed unto you!

Now let me tell why wrote you a poem this year,

It is because  I wanted to execute your teachings in my life,

You told me to walk in the light of my testimony,

And here I am stepping into my spoken word artistry,

I also wanted to appreciate you,

For the void of a father figure that you fill in the lives of many,

And those of us who have not even set eyes on their fathers,

You have given us an opportunity to call you "daddy".

When people see you in pictures,

They remark, "Oh he looks young, how come he is your father?"

I tell them; Excuse me, do not question the things of the Spirit,

Or you will lose your mind,

This is my father  I don’t owe anyone an explanation,

And frankly, I expect nobody to understand,

How the shepherd-sheep and father-daughter dichotomy came about!

A while  ago when people got teary eyes when talking about you,

I considered them drama queens and kings,

Now having fitted myself into their boots,

I know exactly what is it to come home,

 Like a small girl with swollen knees,

To hear my father say "All is well my daughter",

For I now understand the weight carried,

By that simple five-worded sentence!

As your children you reprove us for our wrong doings,

When we go astray you bring us back to track,

Sometimes we sulk, we leave you,

But when we eventually come back,

With our filthy and tattered souls,

You welcome us with open arms,

And still stand and tell the entire world that,

This is my daughter, this is my son!

We see you walking the talk

When you preach and practice

The 1Corinthians 13:13 that has now become your signature scripture,

Keep on being a good father that you are,

Keep on loving your children,

Keep on holding our hands and showing us the way,

Happy Father's day,

And prophecy, my father!!!

***

IT WAS NOT OVER

            "They are like withered grass,

            Carried away by torrential cloudbursts,

           They pass like a dream,

           That disappears by the night."

This is a lyrical verse that had stuck in my head,

Since Saturday 16th  February three half dozen years ago,

When the hymning funeral procession was singing to the top of its voice,

And the hearse was plangently yelping the siren,

When my mother was taken to her final resting place,

And I thought that was the end of me,

But it was not over!

Taking a trip down this memory lane,

Reflects nothing but the hopelessness of  the situation,

When one and the only pillar of strength for the entire family was gone,

And I, hardly ten years old  could with difficulty,

Figure out how life was going to be like,

Having not known my father or his kindred,

And at that point in time,

My mother was gone for good,

But it was not over!

And a year later the reality was beginning to sink,

When I went to school with training shoes,

Given away from some well-to-do family,

But I must be grateful I didn't go barefooted.

The silence in the house was so loud due to the absence of one member

And I am thankful I didn't lose my mind.

We were left so destitute we could not even afford,

The village water bill of M15,

Some proximal relative allowed us to draw water from his tap,

But the distance between our houses was so long it was unbelievable,

You could have seen my brother pushing,

A three-tin drum on a borrowed wheel-barrow,

But it was not over!

The  game grew tougher at the lower secondary school,

During chilly winters when I was the only one in class,

Without winter  socks to cover my lower extremities,

I received an influx of questions from friends enquiring,

Why I was being so hard on myself in that biting chill,

I could come up with a lie that I was somehow  allergic to the socks,

Yet I knew exactly that I didn't have M8 to buy them,

Come break time when everybody would come back to class,

With refreshments ever so affordable but for me,

I would be impatiently waiting for lunch provided from the school kitchen,

As my first and the last meal of the day at times,

But it was not over!

Sometimes we fall hard and get badly injured,

And a comeback seems a possibility of dreamland,

Storms of life mercilessly haul and crush us against walls,

We need not to stay aground,

For even the mightiest men fall,

But their rebound is always shocking,

Be not an exception,

Fight back against the turbulences,

It's no train smash to fight for your turning point,

Be the first hero of your own,

Because it is always not over!

***

 

TO THE ONE

I, I am yours to hold,

I am yours to have,

I am yours to walk with,

And I am yours to laugh with!

Now I do,  at long last feel what it is like ,

To have, to hold and to grasp,

It never did cross my mind,

That I will ever love again,

But you came into picture and re-arranged everything!

Like particles I had fallen onto the ground,

Even scientists had proven that,

No molecule could hold me back together,

But you gathered my pieces one by one,

Picked me up and shaped me up again !

Neither did you stumble over and fall for me,

Nor did I have a specific formula for keeping you by my side,

But you sat down with the panel of  your inner self,

And finally matters of your heart instructed you

To hold my hand and walk  down this road with me!

You embraced my indefinable imperfections ,

You paid no attention to my not-so-beautiful past,

You smoothed the rough terrain of my background,

And you opened your arms,

And gave me the taste of  love!

You, You outstretched your hand and clasped my fingers into yours,

You tickled the palms of your hands against  mine,

You allowed  me to put my head on your chest,

To listen to the beating of your heart,

And there... the heart is singing a love song!

What more can I possibly ask for?

When a diamond had dropped right into my hand,

How can I let go of a loving creature that,

Had turned me  into me,

The me that is able to smile, giggle, blush and laugh hard?

Babe, you deserve a standing ovation,

For winners always need someone to clap for them,

You managed to lift my feet from the ground ,

How can I ever disappoint you and shame myself

By drawing back to square one?

How can I possibly do that, how can I?

***

BIO: Pontso Kane is from the Kingdom of Lesotho (the Kingdom in the Sky), pursuing her Master of Arts in English at the University of Lucknow. She holds a Bachelor of Education from the National University of Lesotho. She is an aspiring spoken word artist, has staged her poetry performances on different platforms in Lucknow and has presented research papers on international seminars and webinars. Her poems have been published in the Journal of Literary Arts, Rhetorica Quarterly; of the department of English and Modern European Languages at the University of Lucknow where she is also a co-editor under the section of poetry.

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Setu, Febuary 2021