Without Tears

She held him tightly to her breast
His lifeless legs flung astride her left leg
His arms loosely hung as withered fronds
She rocked him and adjusted her vice-like grip
Her lips moved, out of rhythm, no sound
Her eyes pierced through the wailing horde
She heard none, saw none and blink none.

The wailers took turns to console their sister
They knew her son, at ten her mother’s man
A widow early torn off from her lover
Today, her lone consolidation rudely snatched
Not by the undiscerning cold hands of death
But by those who spread peace painfully
With smoking guns and dripping daggers.

It was her child, her son, her portion
She won’t let go of her boy, her husband.
“Let’s have the remains for the needed rites.”
She stared still above the heads and beyond
Was that the lot of the widow of Nain
Or of Rachel refusing to be consoled?
If only Jesus would pass by!

They took her lover in their earlier raid
Her tears had flowed like the River Benue
But its warmth could not bring him back,
She had sighed, hissed and wept sore
Till that ancient fool, which knows no sorrow
Gripped her wearied body for a fitful snooze
She woke, frightened and alone with wet eyes.

So, she had no tears left to shed
There was no room for such super luxury,
Steadily, vacantly, she stared above the throng.
” Please, let go, we need the body now
To bathe, to pray, and to plant him by him”
She kept her gaze above the sea of heads
Glued to her bundle, her divine portion.