Afua Yeboah-Antwi Poet I do not know?

Motherland

Motherland
             Journeying into the unknown
             Journeying into a deep soil
             Into a trunk, which has been uprooted and stripped of its branches
             Removed from its natural soil and thrust in cold and bitter climate
             Of an unknown land


              
             Motherland
             We have come
             We have survived
             We have come to embrace our motherland
       
               
             Motherland
             Forgive me if I don’t understand
             Nor speak my mother tongue
             For we have been away for too long
             Forgive me if I don’t answer when you hail at my name


             For the name mista smith gave me 
             Has a different tone, an unfamiliar beat
             To the name you persistently call me with
             Like a frightened mother who screams for her lost child
             And only to hear the echoes of her own voice



           We were stolen
           Captured like hunted antelopes
           Only this hunter had no love
           We were herded of onto a boat 
           And shipped of to an unknown destination
           A land that had no sunshine
           A climate that was so cold it cracked my soft skin
           And offered no shea butter to grease my cracked wounds



           Motherland
           Forgive us if we do not bear our tribal marks
           Forgive me if my hips do not move ceremoniously to the drumbeat
           For I’m of mixed breed
           Part British and Part Spanish


           I am a descendant of a slave girl
           A property that mista smith could enjoy a t his own convenience
           A property that he could explore
           Benefits of hips, and my upright breast
           And the rhythmic of my waist-beads


           Motherland
           RAPE
           I heard you cry out
           RAPE
           I cried back


           Motherland
           I was your untouched child
           But I became part of mista smith property
           Part of his wealth and livestock
           And a property cannot be raped
         

           Motherland
           Hush, do not weep
           For we have survived, we have journeyed home

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