WEEK 2 - FIRST SON

Obi’s back rests on the hut mouth
The hair in his ears pricking back
Even his breath he holds still
Straining to hear his son’s first cries

Piercing screams from his spent Third Wife
Covers the age-old song of birth
From the midwives’ lips to push and push
"Come on now! Push and push!"

Obi shivers though a warm night
He should be with the other men folk
Standing rigid at the door post
Is nowhere to be for these things

But he’d made a promise to his wife inside
To be as close as custom allowed
And when that boy should come at last
Blood and all, he’d touch him first!

Off a-ways from his Third Wife’s woes
A lonely dark hump against the sky
The hut of the village Outcast Nut –
His own mother – thankfully dead?

He shivers again just thinking of it
The Old Woman had been dying since
Since the rains began three moons ago
But she clings to life with stubborn pride

Thwarting Obi’s ceremonial plans
Of welcome for his newborn son
Births should always follow deaths
Particularly hers – a double joy!

She’ll die tonight, The Gods spoke it
As they’d decreed the birth of his son
Whom he’d name "Obi-Agu" –
Heart of a tiger – after his own father

He’d teach his son the Ways of Men
To stalk lions in the desert lands
To slice heads off in the heat of war
To subdue your wives and all your house ...

A sudden sharp slap against raw hide
The familiar scream of a newborn child
Obi rushes in to behold this sight:
His newborn son in his Third Wife’s hands

The midwives’ eyes avoid his own
His wife’s too is tinged with guilt
Gods above, say the boy’s not dead
The news is worse – the boy’s a girl!

Custom decrees he thank The Gods
For his wife and child are safe and sound
But darkness clouds his broken heart
Obi turns ’round and walks right out

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