Mother’s Day! Our Chinese Chop Sticks’ Day!

*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.

“Mothers in Ghana, we the Women’s Wing of the New Patriotic Party, seize this special occasion that respects you to pay tribute to you for all the sacrifice, commitment, tolerance and love you have bestowed on children and families in this country” (Ghanaweb May 13, 2012).

Ghanaians are hunters
Cultural predators
Stalking
Chasing
The West
The Orient
Looking for it all
Looking for new Daze
Oh! Their Mother’s Day
Oh! River Thames’ Day
Chinese Chop Sticks’ Day

Their day is our DAYS
Their day is our Daze
Valentine’s Day is our Daze
Easter Day is our Daze
Christmas Day is our Daze
Mother’s Day is our Daze
Chelsea’s Day
Ah! Bechem Chelsea’s Daze

Motherhood is universal
Mother is good
Mother is gold
Mother is a goddess
But our Mother is doomed
Ghana!
Our Mother is doomed
Mother Ghana is doomed
By her children
Our dearth of inventiveness
Our inferiorization of our own
Our love for foreign things
Our Mother Ghana is doomed
Raped
Battered
Inferiorized
Marginalized
By her own children

Ghanaians are hunting
Hunting for more
Days, Months, Centenaries
All foreign ones
In the woods of the West
In the woods of the Orient
Ah! To celebrate our daze
In praise of the West
In praise of the Orient
Ah! Very soon
Celebration
We shall celebrate it all
Lincoln’s Day
River Thames’ Day
Their day is our daze

Ghanaians are hunters
Cultural predators
We over-killed another one
Mother’s Day
As we over-killed all
Valentine’s Day
Easter
Christmas

Ghanaians are hunters
Cultural predators
In the woods of the West
In the woods of the Orient
Ah! That is what we do best
Pray for foreign cultures
Prey on foreign cultures
Ah! It is our best achievements
The best comes from the West
The nest comes from the East
Ah! Our nursing rhymes
The rhymes that ruin us

Ghanaians are hunters
Cultural predators
In a daze
Hunting
Foraging
Chasing
Stalking
Searching
For all things Western
For all things Oriental

*Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D., is a nationalist Denkyira beauty. She is a trained oral historian cum sociologist and Professor in the USA. She lives in Pennsylvania with her great mentor and teaches Africa-area studies at a college in Maryland. In her pastime, she writes what critics have called “populist hyperbolic, satirical” poetry. She can be reached at [email protected]

**My poems and essays on Ghanaweb and elsewhere must not be reproduced in full or in part for any academic or scholarly work without my written permission.