In my dreams, I see you.
I hear your voice.
I feel your presence.
You are my guiding angel, and your everlasting smile brings me joy.
Your afro, with its shiny and beautiful hair, has grown, and I wonder how you still manage to take care of it. I remember how women used to stretch their necks like giraffes just to catch a glimpse of you whenever you walked by. Whispers in the vineyard would spread like wildfire, announcing your arrival. I watched as nosy ladies, or Pinocchios as I’ll call them, blew hot air in an effort to catch your attention, but their efforts were in vain.
You used to watch from the terraces, your big, beautiful, round eyes balling out each time the wind blew southward. I remember how the wind brought a pleasant aroma, and you would put on your favourite blue shirt that accentuated your dark melanin, which dripped like honey. This honey attracted a goddess with a pointed nose and a waist like an hourglass. You marvelled at her beauty as she strode by in her Scottish skirt, with her hips swaying from side to side. You gasped for breath and ruffled your afro, not knowing how to approach her.
As time went by, your desire and meaning for her outweighed the scale. The simmering bubbles underneath your breath each time her aroma reached your nostrils were a sign that it was time. The compound’s wondering eyes popped out like popcorn on a hot surface, and the competition for the goddess grew bigger. It was a fight between the cats and dogs
In a few days, you were leaving for a faraway nation. Leaving the goddess behind without extending your olive branch filled with Italian olives felt like a bee sting, a sting that engulfed your heart. As the sun rose, you sat on the chair, crossed your legs, and wrote something on a piece of paper only you knew. It was a message to the goddess, a message that the goodness had been waiting for all the time she swayed from side to side to catch your attention. The goddess’s smile sparkled like the lunar rainbow, showing her well-arranged teeth like a piano keyboard.
As she came to sit next to you, after being summoned by the Alpha male, the grapevine, and the noises from the Pinocchios went quiet. Her neck tilted downward as an acknowledgement to your advances. She was smitten by your charming, well-polished mannerism.
As the sun set, hand in hand, you walked down the alley with the goddess. And the compound knew she was the one who you were waiting for, the one who later you married, the one you loved and built a home together, the one who you shared your short lives on mother earth together. I called her Aunty Patricia, and I called you Uncle Moses. To this day, I still call you that because I feel your presence and hear your good guidance of being good to people. It does not change who you are but makes you a wealthy person in spirit.
I sign off this tribute with a smile on my face, knowing that you will read it wherever you may be, and you will always have a chair reserved at the table and a light lit for you.
And I will keep smiling as you did.
Holistic Hazel