Zaynab Richardson

BSc Medicine and Surgery, Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine

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tokari banane wala

We’re held, guarded, by the bruised arms of the founding pillars –
of the bloodline.
Surrounded by the calloused hands of our un-named remnants,
Giving blessings with no charged fees,
My ankles, my parents, growing old in stature and face,
their swollen darkened eye-lids tense,
but never fail, to lead me down the weaving path of a healer,
Trace your hands along the riveting, rising, and falling prominences of the bottom,
Where we gathered and prayed and sent our lights with you,
Like the freshly picked root vegetables you governed,
when you were dug up, we were like the soil that lost its principles, with no base to stand on, we fell through.
with hands capable of healing institutions,
I reform the boundary of untethered ends of tweed baskets,
each patient has a place, a collective purpose,
I tighten my grip, and wilfully usher in the dawn with my duty,
To find a way back to you—
by letting them leave the way they came