In the Igbo language, Ada is the name given to the first born daughter. Often a suffix is included in the name such as Adanna, Adaaku, Adaeze, Adanma, Adaure. This poem gives praises to the first daughter and the position she plays within the Igbo family and community.

Ada

All over the earth she exists

In every home of the Ibo tribe

And where she is not, she is desired.

The apple of every father’s eye

The pride of every mother

The first daughter.

Looked up to with respect

Precious as gold

Valued like diamond

Cherished like a treasure.

A female! We may lament,

But an epitome of pride.

In the African heritage,

In the Ibo culture.

Addressed with a variety of names

Adanna

Adaaku

Adaeze

Adanma
Adaure

Adaugo

Adaora

Appearance matters not to her

Beautiful or not she is greatly admired.

Tall or short, she stands elegant.

Even if small, she is mighty

Due respect is accorded her.

In a family chagrined with chaos and anarchy,

When all effort to make peace seems futile,

She is sought.

Whether across the seas or in the neighbourhood,

Her presence is hurriedly summoned.

A female warrior!

A commander of respect!

When she speaks amongst her kinsmen,

All is quiet as her voice is heard

And her words of wisdom sink in.

An instrument of peace, to warring parents

And guardian, to erring brethrens

Her words, usually final

She who bears the burden of her siblings

And carries a load often too heavy for her shoulders.

Ever smiling in her sufferings,

And always open-armed to her brethrens.

Always the part, if not full bearer of the family’s brunt

Yet on her wedding day, all benefit from her bounty.

At the death of a father, she is expected

Even when a son exists.

At the death of a mother, ayayah!!! The more interesting

Her presence is demanded at all cost.

No burial takes place except she is seen.

What a wonder!

All is suspended until she arrives and plays her part.

A fascinating scene to be witnessed by alien tribes.

A female! We may lament again.

Yes! A female child

But none measures up to her.

I tell you,

An Ada without these marks is no Ada at all

And should be ashamed of herself.

To you parents who do not value her,

Shame on you!

And you brethrens, who do not know her worth,

Turn over a new leaf!

For no other is like her

None is like her, in your life.

© Chinwe Azubuike

Technorati: Chinwe Azubuike Igbo

“The Troy Davis case involves Troy Anthony Davis, an American sports coach, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of a Savannah, Georgia police officer, Mark Allen MacPhail, solely on the basis of eyewitness testimony.^[1] Seven of nine witnesses later recanted their testimony, but he has been unable to get a new trial. Amnesty International, Pope Benedict XVI and others have appealed against his sentence, contributing twice to the sentence being stayed temporarily. However, in October 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Davis’ last appeal. Davis’ execution date had been set for October 27, 2008, but was stayed on October 24 by a three-judge panel from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.^[2]”
[source…]

This is a complicated case because one man has been killed, and another is going to be killed. A family is bereaved and another is going to be bereaved. The logic is all wrong in feeling rage for the loss of a loved one and intending to make someone else feel rage for the loss of their loved one.

I am against killing people for whatever reason. There are a number of things capital punishment does not do, and one of them is bring back the dead person. Another one is satisfy the family of the dead person. Another is curb violent crime. And yet another is be safeguarded against errors liable to execute innocent people.

Troy Davis must be allowed to present his case, especially if there is new evidence. The witnesses who have recanted must be grilled, and those who haven’t recanted must be grilled as well, because a cloud of doubt hangs over whether this man is guilty or not. Is he guilty? I don’t know, and I’m willing to bet very few people know. That’s not enough to kill a man for.

My poem does not attempt to say that Troy is innocent. It tries to say he has not been proven guilty. Too many black people have been killed because someone had to pay, and they were there, black and disposable. That is why Troy must not be killed unless he’s proven guilty. And that is why I have written The Message.

THE MESSAGE
(for Troy Davis)

Over the outer walls
a sun is rising, lighting
the same things suns light
whether or not another war
has been sparked, or
a market dried up to die,
the same sun that sometimes
appears to linger above
land on which his mother
grows beans, collards, in soil
smeared with blood, cleared with toil.
It’ll be so heavy one might
mistake it for a low moon
on white picket fence
at this unusual hour,
the morning of his last day;
but a cock crows to tell the boy,
who has grown into a man,
it’s time to go. Elsewhere
in the country, a post-woman
slides letters into mailboxes
whose arms, too, hang loosely
at the sides. A dog scampers after
her jeep to the end of the street,
slinks back home dragging its tail.
It’s a day nobody is waiting for
nor thinks should shine. A day
Jehovah won’t forget easily.
A last day for a man who was a boy,
and through whose skin, silly
with melanocytes, past whose
layers of vein wall, and into
whose lumen, a needle will
go in and leave its message.
© Rethabile Masilo

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After she swallowed me, my mother,
swollen with me, looked for the proper place
to empty me, the pain of carrying me
harsh on her body, a weight in a child’s hand.
So she had me among wild poppies at the foot of her
bed, flowers with faces opening, and cactuses
arranged in a range of well-wishing brightness
smiling to welcome me. With a naked cry I arrived
and scribbled my name on the firmament.
When I was older, I met a woman who, like my mother,
couldn’t stomach lumps, and each time
we would lie there, sleeping or making love,
clinging like spoons, medicinal and clanking
like African shells, three spoons if you counted
the child, whose life was about to enter itself.
Our spines curved around its centre
as we lay together. Then one bright day,
near the 6th or 7th month, the elders
summoned us; we trekked to the village,
and the elders announced to us, to her, in
hushed but serious tones, that in her basin
was contained the life, the everlasting.
© Rethabile Masilo

They drove into the sun! Quite sure
that watching a hill for health, and
sawing wood against its grain
strengthens one, gilds the furniture,
they entered the village and parked
bakkies near our home, spilling out
to disappear inside. We stayed still,
waiting for a sign from the sun. I remarked
that dad was shaking and asked why,
why we stood there in that sad sun
while they ransacked our home. Then
Autumn killed itself and died,
giving me the reason as it gave
bark to the earth, leaves, everything
Lesotho winds like to fling at
the seasoned gods, the dust,
the passionate dust of twig and leaf
that brings out setsokotsane whorls,
even as the face turns cold, and pales
with winter. And that is Africa.
What is more, I’ve seen winds twist
on themselves to hide the thing within.
That day God held his breath, and
all those winds got quiet,
showing the very life inside.
© Rethabile Masilo

TROUBLEMAKER
for ntate Madiba, with respect

When his voice hit the audience,
breaking to pieces the only peace we knew
and were sharing among barbed houses on a hill,
it sent birds off to where startled shards go,
his voice the thing we’d sought
to shake our poetry, make sense of the world
the way a bullet never will.

A shipment of negroes
leaves the shore and is forever gone
to render music unto the world,
win an Olympic with a half a nutrition.
In a dire dance of the last dama, they move
like sirige masks among cotton fields.
Still, his voice beckons. A tap root
fills my mouth completely, floor to roof.
The first time I heard him I thought it was a mistake–
this ideal he was preparing to die for,
but it was in his voice, carried to my door
by the choice of an ordeal, joined by others
from far inland into the Maloti mountains,
where between seasons of cold and hot,
snow and sun shuffle the light.

In the chill of night when the wind is still,
the island whispers thoughts of ghosts,
in nomine Patris et Fillii et Spiritus Sancti,
in a voice like the one I took at Peka High School
for the year-end show when, dressed for war,
and having rubbed the struggle into my hair,
my father watching from the front row,
we marched on-stage, and I began with
the words our people had stated in Kliptown:
South Africa belongs to all who live in it.
© Rethabile Masilo

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