The Tears Of Masho Poem by Elizabeth Padillo Olesen

She gave her child away
She had AIDS, they say
Her children should have
Parents to care of them
when she by death
should say goodbye to life.

And her dear own child was
sent to adoption
to a far away land, to a land
she had never been before-
A strange paradise
for her child and which
She as mother could not reach
by her bare feet or sandals.

She did not get the
address of the new parents
She could not write
them in her own tongue
She was not even allowed
to see the last glimpse
of her dear own child,
to give her last embrace
and words of goodbye.

And this child, Masho, who
used to be cuddled by her
own dear mother,
cried day and night
in the new land thought to
be a new paradise.
She watered her pillow
with her own tears and longing.

And she could not understand
why she had to leave her
own mother and playmates
in her own village far away
just because her mother
is condemned to die
by AIDS, they say.

_________

Response to the debate of adoption of children in Denmark, to a particular case of the Ethiopian child, Masho. November 27,2012