Reincarnates

The night my ayeeyo died,

I could not be with her,

For reasons that I till date regret,

Shortly after her demise,

Habooba’s old goat put to bed,

It was a fine young doe,

Be-adorned with beaut right from the womb,

One day, as I sat by Maami’s tomb,

Brooding as I sang dirge tunes,

‘Angelina’ came along and sat next to me,

She looked into my eyes as though she could see,

And that was when I knew:

The ones that loves us,

They never really leave us,

They always come back to us,

As things we barely give much thought.

-For Maami, Ofcourse.

Ayeeyo: Somali word meaning grandmother.

Habooba: Arabic word for someone amazing, magnificent. A loving person with a very big heart.

Maami: Yoruba word also meaning mother/grandmother.

Angelina: The name given to my grandmother’s goat.

Inspired by Warsan shire’s ‘Tea with our grandmothers’.