She dies

By Alpha Bedoh Kamara


The drums wailed in the night
Unable to resist the beating sticks
And the crowd clapped and danced
Hypnotized by the hot rhythms
Of the weeping drums

The celebration consumed the night
As the drums rumbled in the dark
Hypnotizing the shadows that faded out
To the shuffle and scurry
Of dancing merry souls

She was so beautiful
Others say, more gracious than a fairy
When taken into the dark
Accompanied by the rumble
Of weeping drums

The beat was the same
As it has always been
And they danced to its wailing
As she was taken to learn
To love, and be loved

For it was her day
Her passage to maidenhood
Young girls, maiden and women
Arrayed in the rumbling dark
Danced to the weeping drums

But the drums suddenly stopped
The rumble disappeared with the shadows
The elders amongst themselves worried
Of what cause the drums to stop
From talking to the ancestors

From afar, came a crier’s roar
Unthinking of in such a day
When palm wine pots flooded the village
And the elderly swam in merry
That the crier broke the calabash

The young men ran into their rooms
The elderly snailed into theirs
Leaving behind their wives to tend the news
For in the rumbling dark
The life of her was gone.