Mother!

O ghastly Mother covered with dirt and grime!
Mad woman
Scorn of the playground
How often I dream of you
And paint with my lover's eye,
A Queen bedecked with beautiful hills and grasslands
Sporting wildlife like gold jewels
And crowned abundantly with beautiful black skin.

How often you have mourned for your children
Your prodigal children
The ones that make paintings of bandages on your wounds
And cringe when they ooze
The ones that flee across your deserts and seas
Through Lybia, Morocco, Tunisia
Into the ghettos of Italy and Spain.

Mad woman
You dance naked in the market square
With teary eyes and a broken soul
While your children pawn your royal robes
To strangers
For measley rations of bread.

The Strangers mock you
And ration bread to your children-
The few that would sell them your jewels
They even offer to treat your madness

Mother
Your madness cannot be treated by strangers
It is not your mind that is broken
It is your soul.