ETE-OWOT (Lamentation of a Father)

ETE-OWOT Lamentation of a Father
  I look at your mother And at your sisters Why are they not my own? To say that they are my blood Your left is not far from the right I took for myself another wife To replace the one I lost I am now looking for snail at noon My mates had gone out at night They are back with good and healthy catches   My Eve insisted on her ways For pleasures unsuspected From the serpent as of old What wealth she sought in materials I do not know To earn me a rival as foe If that was her plans She will not succeed   My right leg is broken By her lover, that usurper Who flattered her with riches To mock my family in penury. Why has it become my cause? To die fighting over matter in a woman And to be her wrapper and a foot mat   I sent forth a message to my challenger Against his greed in polygamy That he will crumble before my eyes Lo! He came again Attacking from my weakness In my love for a woman and her son Whom he took away from me With your mother as accomplice He renamed you Albert To number amongst his children   Should I let go My first and only blood Fury came with rage Helplessly I pushed forward To fight a battle of my life He used his powers again Of witchcraft Secret societies And sorcery He sent his angel of death Like in a dream I fought two demons Of misery and violence One fell with a broken limb The other with bruised face ran away More forces of darkness came And engulfed me while on a ship As a winch-man and a greaser I fell from the height of a crane To the deck of a berthing vessel And into the low hold I lost touch with the world   Like sheep with shattered pelvises I was brought out helpless Breaking this leg for your mother Crippled my world I still thank my God It was not the ocean I fell into As a prey to the sharks This would have meant my end   The game turned around He who wishes another dead Must die in return Where was his witchcraft Secret societies and sorcery When his flesh saw corruption And came to its end in death?   But my wife would not come back The seed of harm had been sown Aided by evil and sin For this lingering spell I want you to tell me On whose side are you? Doubt doubles your allegiance And you refused with indifference To follow my footsteps   What are you planning with her? Tell me, or I deny you your lineage I will cut your ear To teach you the seriousness Of this inherited crime Go… tell your mother I am her god-husband My strength is rested there I ask again On whose side are you my son? Why do you oppose me in this way? By eating her food Sleeping with my opponent And planning together with them You have turned against me And become an enemy flowing from my blood. With mutual hatred we distanced ourselves, Why then do you hunt me so? Even to my grave It must be late to know I had a son in Zorab And if I had offended you Forgive and don’t forget your father Nsisua Eteowot Ekpeotu