Anaya Reed

For My Mother in Her Mid-90s
Related imageAunt.                                                                      


Don’t ask
me how
I come to address my mother thus.

Long
complex, complicated stories:
heart-warmingly familial and
sadly colonial.

You know how
utterly, wonderfully
insensitive the young can be?

Oh no. We are not here talking adults
who should know better,                                                                           
but never do.                                                                                                 ghttps://www.alamy.de
Aunt,  
I thank you for
being alive today, alert, crisp.

Since we don’t know tomorrow,
see me touching wood,
clutching at timbers, hugging forests:

So I can enter young,
age, infirmities
defied.

Hear my offspring chirping: 
“Mummy, touch plastic,
it lasts longer!”

O, she knows her mama well.
The queen of plastics a tropical Bedouin,
she must travel light.

Check out the wood, Figurative Language: comparing wood as being young as and how young can be so beautiful and warm and peaceful. 
feel its weight, its warmth
check out the beauty of its lines, and perfumed shavings.

Back to you, My Dear Mother,
I can hear the hailing chorus
at the drop of your name.         
And don’t I love to drop it
here, there, and everywhere?
Not missing out by time of day,

not only when some chance provides, Figurative Language: she used to announce her mothers name being on  the tip of her tongue "dragged into talks private and public" as a metaphor.
but pulled and dragged into talks
private and public.

Listen to the “is-your-mother-still-alive” greeting,
eyes popping out,
mouth agape and trembling:

That here,
in narrow spaces and
not-much-time,
who was I to live?
Then she who bore me?

Me da ase. 
Ye de ase.
  • Ama Ata Aidoo, princess of the Fanti people in south Ghana
  • Her father sent her away to attend the Wesley Girls High School
  • Writes stories that focuses on women
  • Educator
  • Always was concerned about the "womanhood in the Ghanaian culture
  •  https://biography.yourdictionary.com/ama-ata-aidoo
This image connects to the poem by portraying the theme that a mother has more meaning to them the just their title. This shows how a soon to be mother from Africa has already found a connecting relationship with her baby.
 
When the poet writes "who was I to live? Then she who bore me?" refers to her mother who gave her life and she is only alive because of her. Also in the poem to which she mentions "aunt" as her mother because of long history of the relationship with her and colonialism. In the poem she refers to herself as being a woman who has pride in who gave her life. Ama Ata Aidoo would probably consider herself as a woman who may have had history and has had some difficult times with her mother;however, she still has love for her.  The stanza division impacts the poem from how she shifts from talking about appreciating her mother. Also the use of some stanzas using imagery in her hugging wood to symbolize her bond with her mother and the idea of joyfullest in being young. The tone of the poem is calming and loving considering her talking bout how she loves her mother a lot and compares life to long lasting plastic . The poem also sets a tone of appreciation of our parents. Also Ama ata aidoo set the tone of remembe. The them of the poem is to appreciate the people who give us life because you never could know what can happen next to that person or you so enjoy life while you are long and learn how to love others as much as they love you, our mothers.   

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