There's something about eating a mango
That always reminds me of home
May be it's the colour
That sends me straight back
To sitting on the back step
In the blazing sun
Picking the mango strings from my teeth
The fruit all squishiness in my hands
And the sticky juice on my chin
Rosen scolding me for ruining
A perfectly clean white t-shirt
And knowing she would later scrub her fingers raw to remove the stain
Or perhaps it's the way they make me feel
All golden, replete and happy,
After I've indulged all my senses
Remembering a time when I'd be
Curled up in the shade of the avocado pear tree,
Not a scrap of it left except the pip.
Perhaps it's the women I recall
With their enamel bowls in the makeshift market
Outside the Bulawayo town Hall
Calling one dollar for five
Their baskets perfectly balanced
On their white starched doek clad heads
Chubby babies tied with Merlin towels
To their backs
In those golden years of childhood.
The mango tree after the rain
Droplets falling off the spear-shaped leaves
The joy of growing my own
Later in life.
The taste as the flavour hits my palate
And the scent that travels to the back of my throat and into my nose
If I close my eyes while I'm savouring it
I can almost imagine
I am in the land where it was grown
In the land where I was grown
And suddenly from all the fibre of my being
I am back home.
Cyndi Barker - Author