Do You Know Who Your Son Is? Poem by *Tony Cemaluk Egbuonu

My father was a subsistence farmer. Mounds were ready.
We were to plant yams.

My task was to prepare Ukpo -
yam tendril protector from heat,
made from pineapple leaves.
Those leaves have kid-unfriendly spines.

A titled elder approached our site.
My father greeted him by title.
The elder returned the greeting.

Then I turned, looked at the elderly man,
and called him by his first name:
'How are you? '

My father grabbed me by the neck,
raised me up for his terrific brushing kick.
'You are not qualified to call an elder by first name,
not to talk of a titled elder.'

But the elder shouted: 'Stay action! '
He asked my father: 'Did you tell him my first name? '
'No, ' my father said.

'Then do you know who your son is? '
My father had no answer.

The elder commanded: 'Let him be.'
Then he turned to me and answered respectfully:
'Nnaa adim nmaa oo. Father, I'm fine oo.'
And he left.

My father was lost in thought thereafter.