Who shall console the veiled woman
who buries her head in her wet hands,
who weeps at the folly of weeping
tears that won't dissolve the sour truth
that in a deal between God and man,
God always takes the better bargain?
The cause is as big as a grain of millet.
Who shall console the lonely woman
who sits in a kraal, on this lonely mound,
who sits and sobs,
each sob a knife thrust in her heavy heart,
each tear a drop of blood from her bleeding heart,
each sigh a bubble of life bursting from her lungs?
The cause is as big as a grain of millet.
Who shall feel the sad music
that rides on the waves of her sobs and tears
and rocks her hunched-up form
as she clenches her quivering jaws
gnawing at the eternally elusive truth
that who has known no enemy in his life
idolizes the body?
Who shall share her singular experience
that the cause as as big as a grain of millet?
Why should she sing
when the cause is no more?
Why should she mourn the loss
of what she got beyond expectation?
Why should she resent the equivocal tongue
of the Three Sisters at whose shrine the Oracle said:
"Daughter of Misfortune
A woman is never barren
In your last egg, I see a daughter
But beware of the bull's horn."
Whose cloudy eye will look back with her,
rocking her baby as she rocks her grief now,
singing to her mirror with maternal glee:
never go into the sun
lest you melt away
never sit in the cold
lest your blood congeal
never walk in the dawn
lest the dew erode your feet
never walk too far
lest you stumble and fall,
never come in the bull's way
lest the prophecy come true
Who shall share her singular experience
that the cause is as big as a grain of millet?
Who shall hear the hunters' cry,
like leaves singing on the wings of the wind,
the hunting dogs' barks of conquest
like the tribal drums after the war victory;
who shall hear the hunter's cry
that drew the daughter to the gate,
her agemates' ululation
that lured the daughter to the kraal,
the women's circular spinning gyration
that raised the daughter to this lonely mound,
the hunter's spears shimmering with victory
that dazzled the daughter's eyes
and overturned her balance,
thrusting her on the fatal point of the bull's horn
negligently sticking out in the kraal?
Who shall hear the hunter's cry
that brought the prophecy home?
Who shall sit beside this lonely veiled woman
to give a consoling answer to her sodden question:
"Who can prevent the liver of ill luck
from breaking the knife?"
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