Siting on Gold

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By Sr. Esther Jeruto Koros (OSF) 







‘Make us proud,' they said, 'read all you can!'

‘Don’t fall into their niche,’ they warned!

‘Read the Bible too!’ They intoned.  

The throng getting strewn,

Filled with longing for the outcome:

‘To your graduation, we must come!’

 

Her feet paralyzed with euphoria,

Beholding the affectionate campus towers

‘I made it here.’ She thought

And she met mirrors that mocked her.

Surveyed her want of things;

Her relic outfit, her disheveled hair, alarming shoes

 

Instantly, unworthiness crept in

She needed a quick fix,

A complete metamorphosis

Who would ford her urgent alterations?

And it was lonely as a cloud

And none to lean on.  

 

She found someone competently whetted in crookedness,

The tutorial commenced while she listened hesitantly:

‘Don’t be seen with bibles, makes you look ancient,

Don’t walk stooped as though scared of tomorrow,

Don’t be dressed like nuns, heaven is fictitious,

Don’t be so dark, fairness is the norm.’

 

Before she could ask, how to earn her keep:

‘You are rich,’ she told her.

You’ve been sitting on gold.

Shown into a handful of contenders

She put her gold into use; a multitude of men.

Weeping at night in contrition;

Mourning her disloyalty to her relations.

 

Four years of transformation and brisk was the time

The villagers keeping their promise,

Trooped into the campus.

And the girl now a woman, lustrous, fair and assertive

Was completely irreconcilable with the past

For she had discovered goldmine within.  

 

A woman shielding her gloom

Keeping her gleam though dreamy

Yearning for years of past glory  

Hollowed out and devoid of substance

Four years of deformation, lost her essence.

Now, don’t the throngs cry for reformation?

Profound is the pain, when they say, ‘I told you so.”  

 

© September 2020

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