MOTHER'S BOY

Mother sewed back my buttons with a rhyme
My son, she said, a stitch in time saves nine
So when trouble troubled me I ran to her side
Not to hide in my crime but to hear a new line
For her nuggets were golden to my rainbow's end
Those wise currency of words I sought to spend
Kofi, do not throw your life away in decisions
But weigh them with caution and precision

Mother spared the rod but never the Lord's verse
Spake of parables, epistles and chapters rehearsed
So when the dinner table was short of bread and broth
And the gas and electricity were off
I was full of the Word, and warm in her cloth
'Gye nyame' printed textiles and lavender blouse
Home was not the blocks or bricks in her house

Auntie Aggie lowered her old glasses to stand and stare
Now that was worth a warning, "don't you dare!"
So her silence right after I falter is a deafening scream
She is a lady, she yelled at me only in my dreams
So I would wake up and seek to greet her first
So I know what mood the morning had her abreast

For mother I will always be her boy, needing lines
I will never be too old to be a son, so I keep her rhymes
Till I know all her parables, I am still a mother's boy.