Keff K
O mother, where are thou? Your children are wailing, your children are famished, your children are quarrelling, your children are dying of strange illnesses, your children aren’t alright…
Our garden is weedy, our fields are afire, our rivers are flooded with bad blood, our sky is overcast by clouds of suffering, our land is overran by strangers, and our Church is in ruins. But O mother, where are thou? Your sons are killing each other, your sons are poisoned with fraternal odium. Your sons seek your wisdom to end this feud, but O mother, where are thou? Why are you so quiet? Surely, your sons will listen to you; your sons will heed you. If they don’t, you can disown them, you can curse them… for a mother’s curse is death seventy times seven.
Your daughters, O mother, have fallen from grace. Your daughters are going astray, your daughters are disgracing themselves in foreign lands, your daughters are killing your to-be-grandchildren, your daughters are selling their souls to strangers… But O mother, where are thou? Your lullabies sound like dirges, your words of comfort soothe us no more and your advices counsel us no more.
This storm is strong; the lights are out, our roof is leaking and the pillars are shaking. But we, your children are not afraid. All we need is your assurance, your sweet songs, and your arms around us. But we hear you no more, we feel you no more. O mother, your children are wailing, where are thou? By daylight, our home is filled with cries of anguish and confusion. Your children are famished: hungry for your love, hungry for your attention, hungry for peace, which only a mother can help bring about. Everywhere we go, O mother, there is blood; every street is bloodstained, every hill is a grave, and every home, bereft. Our foes are hither and thither and they have mined our land with conspiracy, with distrust, with tribalism, and with the ills of men. They are preying on our weaknesses, our shortcomings - our division, our misunderstanding. And even our school is red, but they have whitewashed it with lies, with hypocrisy and misinformation. Now, we, your children are disillusioned, brainwashed, and inflicted with inferiority complex. O mother, are we inferior to anybody? But O mother, we hear you not, where are thou?
Yes, our Church is in ruins. The Book has been desecrated. The hands that have strangulated a brother, a sister, a father, a mother, a son, a daughter, and an unborn baby have flipped through every page. The earth is crying out. The altar is bloodstained, too. No, not of the Man, but of men of profanity. Our Holy ground is swarming with idolaters and pagans. Our Church bell rings, but only on Sunday mornings. Yet, the death-bell knells every single day. O mother, hold our hands, and show us where to kneel and how to kneel.We, your children, watch the sunset from the porch, from across the street where we used to play in bygone days, but now deserted, waiting for you to come home, O dear mother, before night should fall on us forever.
Your children are wailing, your children are famished, your children are quarrelling, your children are dying of strange diseases, your children aren’t all right… will you listen to the anguished cries of the Naga children. O mother, where are thou?
