“If women could weave their pain
It would be longer than the sky,”
She began
My mother said
I must hold the sun in my mouth
For days too dark to live through
For days that sound like mourning
She said
To make a home for myself
In my own heart
To make this shrine
which my spirit can drink from
“My child,
Truth lives under your tongue,
Learn to speak it”
We survive,
Because our mothers survived.
Thato Chuma is a Motswana singer, poet and writer. Her poetry has featured in literary magazines such as Saraba Magazine, Brittle Paper, Strange Horizons, Words Dance Publishing, Firewords Quartely and other literary publications across the globe