When you cross the Pearly Gates, will you sing for mum?

I recall those tender dew watered Yaoundé morns

When the cassette spun your voice out the Kenwood speakers,

Lulling my childhood ears to plains which white lilies adorn

And bees buzz the harmony to your vocals and the horns.

 

I recall especially as each new year died to birth another one

That mum would pop the cassette as metronome to the countdown.

And we would be eagerly watching the TV, eyes darting from clock

To TV, from clock to TV, holding on to the present’s each sound,

Conscious these moments shall roam hence only in Memory’s town.

 

The lyrics were beyond my mono-lingual grasp, but for “Liberté”

Where I felt freedom of my spirit soaring, and then “Bonne année”

Which nobody needed to explain. This is all I can take with me round

Memory’s town. But mum sure knew all the songs, and would sing away

As I watched in marvel as her lips waved a magical musical day

 

So Ma’am Nzie, this only I ask of you as you walk the path she took:

Let those words I didn’t understand but which my childhood shook

Pour once again beyond Peter, with love messages from me, three and more

And please, let her… please… harmonize once more every single hook

As once she did, but now in praise to my Maker as He lovingly looks.

 

(c) Nyonglema