Love Poem: Counsel
L'Nass Shango Avatar
Written by: L'Nass Shango

Counsel

Sometimes I rail against old customs
 For the bitterness they sow
 In many contrary, and solitary bosoms
 Cut off from root to grow
 Alone in dark sadness, isolated by winds
 That thresh them apart for common sins

 My mother bore my sister, long time ago
 In love and out of wedlock
 Steep in traditions what did her father do
 Reeling from the moral shock
 He cast her out to stumble through the years
 Feeding the rest of us on bitterness and tears

 My grandfather was established, and well to do
 With corn and cattle enough
 To provide for kit and kin in weal and woe
 She did not need his stuff
 Only a loving arms around her, a voice kind
 To comfort her heart, and give peace of mind.

 But the isolation broke her so, and never again
 Was she whole inside
 And down she spiralled in her blight and pain
 The shame in what she could not hide.
 And still today in a very modern way
 The rules remain forcing mothers to abort and pray

 It takes a special kind of mettle that mother had
 To bring a child against the rule
 That covet to love and stamp the outcome bad
  Must social laws be such a fool
 Must lovers be so be so weak, to bear a child
 And then it destroy it living falsely as undefiled.