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  • My Son
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My Son

Fatoumata Sidibé

The moon keeps watch
and the child sleeps.
His head emerges from the covers
like a flower smiling at life.
His breath is like a nocturnal melody
His mouth like a rosebud
My son asleep
and I standing in complete silence.
Oh body that was once mine!
Oh flesh of my flesh!
My glory in being a mother bursts
Rising from the bottom of my heart
like a myriad of stars
shooting across the sky.
Long ago
you sailed in my womb
like a boat on a calm sea.
In giving birth to you
I gave life to myself.


Fatoumata Sidibé

from A Rain of Words: A Bilingual Anthology of Women’s Poetry in Francophile Africa, edited by Irène Assiba d’Almeida (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2009)

translated by Janis A. Mayes

Reproduced by kind permission of the author.

Tags:

African poetry children Mali mothers sleeping

About this poem

This poem, representing Mali, is part of The Written World – our collaboration with BBC radio to broadcast a poem from every single nation competing in London 2012.

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