CANDLE IN THE RAIN

Her name was Leah,
A beautiful candle that gave light
to the poor ones who had her
as a gift from The Giver
of all that is good and perfect.
She was the hope
that made their hearts beat
as they laboured to make her day come.

She was the candle that gave hope,
A lonely flicker of light in the dark,
Threatened on all sides by the boisterous wind
to which the rain lent an evil hand.
The farmers should have rejoiced that the rain had visited,
But not this one that took their light
and left them in the gloom.

She was a symbol of hope
in a world where the girl child
is married off at thirteen,
When she yet knew not the
difference between a stick and a rod;
When the infant in her is sacrificed
on the ancient altars of culture and tradition
that daily reinforced male dominance.

She was a shining example in a world
where the girl child is thought
to have nothing in her head
and sent to go and make babies
early in her "cursed" life
in a home where the man
is old enough to be called her father...
What voice then for such a child-bride?!

The coming of her day
was the strength in the backs
of the ones that gave her life
as they toiled day and night,
In the rain and under the sun,
With blisters and coarse hands
to show for their labour under the sun
as they hoped against the adversity that held them in a forced embrace.

Soon life came to mock them all;
Leah's day came at long last,
And everyone should have rejoiced, but they couldnt
It wasn't what they had expected,
And instead of the voice of mirth, wailing greeted the surrounding villages,
They all had been raped,
Life had come to cheat them,
Their light forcefully yanked from them; darkness greets them!

She was a heroine,
Though she remained unsung;
Perhaps a helping hand
in stemming the socio-economic continuun
life had lavishly cursed them with,
But those that should have said "YES" said "NO",
The looming threat from birth won at last,
And she was only an endangered candle in the rain....

© John Jave Akhimien, 2018.