A Son That Was His Father's Father 3 Poem by *Tony Cemaluk Egbuonu

The children were busy all morning
picking the fruit the man knocked down.

There is a saying —
a man of title forgets his status
when faced with something too sweet.

Their duty was to gather and assemble the fruit
in safe heaps, hoping for payment
when the work was done.

He came down.
Separated the harvest into two:
the fully ripe and darkened,
and the ones not yet ripe with at least one spot.

From the unripe portion
he began to share — two to each child.

But one child threw a fruit back at him, fuming:
'How would you give this to the owner of the tree? '

The man shouted, as understanding hit him.
He apologized.
Scooped a large quantity
from the fully ripe fruit
and heaped it before that child.

It was never preferential treatment.
It was appeasement.