The Money Not Taken

This job came
As a blessing divine
That relief i cannot define
Though a tot but not a jot
The pay was the heart for the season
Pumping a blood of hope
Through my family’s veins
And the least stop of flow
The grass we then had to mow

The source of my pay
Being a little girl
I’d been tasked to teach
And this particular month’s pay
Had to awaken smiles long time frozen
For nearby stood charismas ready with its demands
And my family’s cry was nothing but a command

Onward christian soldier
I gladly marched on for my pay
As my family eagerly await for share on a tray
Most anxious had been my wife
Who’d been cutting like a knife
Her xmas budget already designed
When the cheque had not yet been signed
A fowl soup she’d prepared on credit
To avoid in our neighbors’ minds a discredit
As many often their talk we’d come under edit


But the payday came with a surprise
That which nature bitterly devised
Men all clad in black
An ominous element: oh god bad luck?
My student had died the night before
Hours she had lain
Racked through with pain
And in the room
Her mother wails
As her father fails
And door opened up in my heart
And pain rushed in with so much dust

But deflated as i was
My money was printed on my mind
With my head bowed
My mind journeyed
Through the labyrinth
Of either takin’ or lettin’ go
For this was a decision
That needs a careful incision
No matter the side taken
One cannot leave unshaken
Homewards i sadly trod
With my decision taken
Lashing loud at my brain!

©adjei agyei-baah
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kwakubaa@yahoo.com