25/03/2024
So, I'm going through my office, sorting through years and years of multiple copies of poems and what not. I'm throwing extras away ... who needs them? But, I am also finding poems I have written and forgotten. Here's one of them, dedicated to my mother Evelyn Viola Epps:
I Told You So
ok, so i got all this rage
and all this pain and all these horrid memories
with your name ridin' hi-ho silva dreams
of meager touch.
and I got all these rantings and railings against you.
but ... i can't tell you the paths I've walked
that ain't been narrow
the places I been
that ain't been holy
the beds I've lain upon that ain't been mine
and, I can't tell you the chil'ren i raised
who don't exactly do what i want ain't exactly turned out
so the neighbors would want me to tea
i can't tell you the times i turned at 2Am
and it ain't been my ni**as name I called or God's
but yours mama yours. You
... knowing the voice of a fool but having loved me anyway. You ... having to got up alone and went on anyhow
washed fed clothed churches educated cheered forgived
helped when it ain't been yours to help
paid when it ain't been your debt.
You who cried when it weren't your tears
You just smile and say from wherever
God calls beautiful Black mothers of struggle
who make some thing from no thing
who shaped destinies of hope from molded clay. You.. sweetly say: "I told ya you'd get it, Baby
I told you so".
Billye Okera
c. 2000
