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She is sitting under her mango tree.
An empty plate and a half-finished cup of tea.
Her hazy sight gazed on the wall while a flock of flies ravage on the wet spot of spilt tea.
I extend my hand for a formal greeting but my presence is absent in her wondering mind.
"Hello granny"
My hand shakes her fragile body while her muscles quake like a shaked *** of half cooked sadza.
" ooh muzukuru Phidza!"
She responds in an almost dried up voice.
I smile though I know that is my brother's name.
She has been forgetting things and now my name is one of them.
"Your mother is right behind you isn't she?"
She asks the usual question.
"No granny but she will be home for Christmas."
I give her the same answer as on yesterday's visit.

Her offsprings had flown to the diaspora for greener pastures.
Leaving her under the custody of maids with neither any of her blood nor seed around.
"The baobab is falling, worms are devouring it from within." She whispers.
I clinch my hands around her in an emotional hug.
These were the hands that spanked me for taking my pants for the bathroom.
And a soft kiss on the fore head reminding me for all that beating for truancy.
So I smile as I am getting lost in the dense forest of my childhood episodes.
The poet exhibits the effects of poverty which has left the elderly in third world countries especially in Africa unattended as the youth are in search of greener pastures. The granny is now suffering from Alzheimer due to old age and is now lossing memory
Staring at your pictures hanged on the wall.
Sitting at your usual spot right by the door
Wishing that these smiles may breathe again.
That they may comfort the family that all is well.
The body viewing is done and they are about to take you away.
Why can't you move and silence the wailing daughters?
Bottling up their emotions are your sons
Because you conditioned them that boys shed no tear.
But how do you expect them to survive with a spear pierced through their soft hearts?

Isn't he your eldest son?
As muscular as he stands in his gigantic frame,
Yet that well is welling up in his oval shaped eyes.
The undertaker is signalling that we are behind time.
His spades and shovels are already ready in a row.
Why can't you tell him to wait a little longer that you may bid us farewell?
The resented unexpected visitor had visited you at night.
And you never had the chance to say good bye.
Why don't you raise and do it nw?
The poem potrays the first hand experiences of the poet at the funeral processions of a loved one who had passed on at night and never had the chance to say good bye

— The End —