Let our Tale Begin with Beauty
1
Let our tale begin with beauty:
this girl who’s busy with her tresses
braiding them tightly to the tip
and wearing the best of poplin,
an all-white bolt of cloth.
What was allowable before
is swopped for bare-headed wickedness
bad girls in beehives
who boulevard about.
You brush away tradition,
ignore your obligations
you blank out our beliefs,
but, women, bolster what remains!
2
Shall we go back a hundred years
to how things used to be
that now we have abandoned?
Or reverse along the beaten path
to behaviours we’ve passed by?
Nowadays we’ve bigger goals
race for the Moon and far beyond
bettering our neighbourhoods
redoubling all our efforts.
You begin with back to school
with reading books and writing:
bumpkin, you can’t just throw us back
we wide-awake believers!
3
But our tale must be continued:
this girl breezes through the months
without a by-your-leave
her brethren, disturbing everywhere,
fail to find out where’s she’s been.
What was allowable before
is swopped for boundless afternoons
armed with bulging handbags
like bandits on the prowl.
You women brush away tradition
ignore your obligations
you blank out our beliefs –
I beg you, bolster what remains!
4
God, that has besprinkled
seas and rivers by His will
bestowing on each its chosen place
on the breadth of this Earth
between his mountains’ bulk,
He bequeathed to every human
an essence to each being –
while you’re bewildered where to go,
near bereft of boon companions.
Begin with back to school
with reading books and writing:
bumpkin, you can’t just throw us back,
we wide-awake believers!
5
But our histories remember
the valuing of cow camels
the bravest of stallions
given to the bride’s kin
with a carbine of best calibre.
What was allowable before
is swopped with bruising selfishness
disobedience to their own blood
refusing the benefit of wisdom.
You brush away tradition
ignore your obligations
you blank out our beliefs –
I beg you, bolster what remains!
6
Girls being bartered
for she-camels and bold steeds
brindled goats and baaing sheep?
By the beliefs we have studied
the Holy Book won’t have it.
Plunderers who profited
and bargained for a beauty
in the bustle of commerce
such backwardness won’t do.
Begin with back to school
with reading books and writing:
you bumpkins can’t just throw us back
we wide awake believers!