Welcome To Widow's Paradise/Swaziland Widows Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

No longer missing the spouse,
He has gone on ahead. Now you
can join me and we sing the song
that is sung in Widow's Paradise.

Loud we sing on, saying we have
arrived at a cross roads of us
women and not the men, for they
get to be widowers, as if they were
made to be that by us.

Inequality stands tall in words,
hence this composition of the song,
to be sung in widow's paradise,
the world of cynics holy.

Luck does not do it, for we could
have manufactured the next generation
of widowers out of men. This corpse
beat us to the race, and rushed itself
down before we could.

Come with a candle and light up the path.
We are going where they've gone. Greet
John, I will, for he left a baby I did
not know. Now I am to be a forgiver,
for how can I begrudge a corpse.

The story unfolds like one of another,
not one about the man you lived with.
Debts tie you down like a real widow,
who needs to come to widow's paradise.

We live on manna here, for the estate
is still being wound up. It got tangled
at every corner. It will get a couple
of dollars in your hand. Stand here
with me, and think of widow's paradise.

Laugh at the past, for you were colluding
against yourself and your offspring,
in getting pennies crawling out of the house,
when the babies were in nappies.

Now that you sit in the back pew,
wearing a black three piece with
the skimpy thing on the back, and
hear people in the front, and ask,
what did put me here.

John did. Yes, you also did, for you
walked back there and not up there.
Protesting, like she does not know the
rules. She cannot even wear that at work.

John did this to you. At work they treat
you like you have leprosy. Claiming the legs
of a widow are bad luck. Now you cover them
with hose, for you believe the death of John
made them unlucky.

Come to the dance of widows of Swaziland.
Here in Widows' Paradise. We sing and
dance and throw the black clothes away.
One day they will come for them. They
will buy you new ones. The maker of
the invisible law. It makes you like
a diseased person this law. Yet you
comply for you must.

One honor remains. You get the best sit,
when the coffin is lowered you put in the
flowers first. Your black veil covers
your face. Beautiful you on that day in
black. End of business sister mine.

Now to the High Court you go, to claim
the titbits before the family fights over
them. Ride the bus you must. Stares, hard
and quizzical. Now the drama begins.

Widows at the entrance. Lots of them come.
Claiming John owned this and that. Only to
find all the property gone. To whom, you ask?
Family, they say. A but of dishonesty,
that stings everybody. His sisters are also
there. Their claim being that you were immoral,
if they have not stolen and torn your what
certifies you married him.

Let us dance in Widow's Paradise.
Just once dance this last dance.
It heals like a real drug, makes
you high and gives you time, to go
on with the tangled up mess
you have entered in through those
double doors of the court.

When we get to the end and see John,
he will get to hear what happened from
the mouth of the horse. It knows the way
home as it goes into this court of
the biggest injustice death committed,
when it took John from us.