Always,
my mother did serve food
First, for my father,
then to the boys
followed to the girls
And then, at last
to herself,
fortunate rarely to
find a few handfuls left, or
the fragments of darheyko rice, and
innocent ignorant i
thought, mothernever got hungry…
Often,
heard my father’s voice
breaking our cemented roof
Ways to stay awake
while never of my mother
blowing off not the feather from her nostrils.
When father spoke
including mother, was silent everyone
order prevailed everywhere,
But when mother did speak
everyone was aloud and chaos followed.
Likewise, boys ventured the places easily
Where girls would not dare even in their wild dreams,
i being the boy
were boisterous always
While silent was girls’ laughter,
did not I see this until today...
Always,
girls did thedirtied dishes
wiped the sooted chulo
with mud,gobar, mato,
also did they the dirtied laundry
of boys and ownsilently,
While the boys stretched their potty belly
basking the warm sun in summer
and hearth in winter
Throughout twelve months,
and being one of the latter
thought I that they are my rights…
Now I am awakened
that change begins with me,
from my home to the world
and never the other way round
that their own home was unfair to them
is in many homes still,
But change has begun
though late, and not at all,
here and there
although not everywhere
telling, men can share their hands
in the kitchen, in the laundry
dining at last,
Never to reverse the role
But to build the world
Where women are treated
as humans as men.
