Shall we say

Shall we put it this way

Shall we say that the maid of Kyerefaso,

Foruwa, daughter of the Queen-mother was

as a young deer, graceful in limb. Such she

was, with head held high, eyes soft and

wide with wonder. And she was light of foot,

light in all her moving.

Stepping springily along the water-path, like a

deer that had strayed from the thicket

springily stepping along the water-path, she

was a picture to give the eye a feast. And

nobody passed her by but turned to look

at her again.

Those of her village said that her voice,

in speech, was like the murmur

of a river quietly flowing beneath

showers of bamboo leaves. They said her

smile would sometimes blossom like a lily on

her lips and sometimes rise like sunrise.

The butterflies do not fly away

from the flowers, they draw near. Foruwa was

the flower of her village.

So shall we say,

Shall we put it this way, that

all the village butterflies, the men, tried to

draw near her at every turn, crossed and

crossed her path, and said of her,

‘She shall be my wife, and mine, and

mine, and mine’.

But, suns rose and set,

moons silvered and died, and as the days

passed Foruwa grew more lovesome, yet she

became no-one's wife. She smiled at the

butterflies, and waved her hand lightly to

greet them as she went swiftly about

her daily work,

‘Morning, Kweku

Morning, Kwesi

Morning, Kodwo’, that was all.

And so they said, even while

their hearts thumped for her,

‘Proud!

Foruwa is proud … and very strange.’

And so the men when they

gathered would say

‘There goes a strange girl. She is not just

stiff-in-the-neck-proud, not just breastsstuck-

out-I-am-the-only-girl-in the-village

proud. What kind of pride is hers?’