Susan Kiguli

As we end our time in Bundibugyo this year in chaos and fear, I was comforted by, of all things, section 3 of the A-Level Literature Exam. The following poem by Susan Kiguli, while talking of the atrocities in Rwanda, somehow made sense even to this situation today. As we pack up our home, close school, and leave this place…

Because I Love this Land

I hold a thousand tears
In the cup of my skinny hand.

I carry ten thousand wails
In the deep hollows of my ears.

I host a million bloated babies
In the deep brown of my eyes.

I house ten million graves
In the curls of my thinning hair.

I have stored pouches upon pouches of pus
In the blisters of my heart.

So we do not talk about them
Those others wrapped in rebel and state cross fire.
We do not sing about them.
How can we sing of things we do not know?
How will we sing about old men’s guts eaten out by hunger,
Old men’s eyes closed for fear of watching axes tear the heads
Off their grandchildren?
How can we explain missing ears, lips, noses,
Lone limbs traversing the land
Without their owners?
How can we ever talk about these things
Without tumours of bitterness
Teeming on our hearts?
No wonder we are silent.

I will not talk about them
I will talk of other things
Of the man who hung naked
On the tree and sweated sorrow for us.
I will sing only of water and blood
Flowing out of a side and a voice
That whispered “it is finished”.
I can think about glory
Wrapping darkness in a shroud
And storing it in an eternal grave.
I will think on love of a heavenly prince
Clothed in earthly tatters fighting
Swindlers in the temple of God.
I will think of a little child talking
To bearded men about his Father’s Love.
I will sing about a risen Son
And transcending peace.
I will sing of the victory
Of love embracing love
That is the only way I can ever walk upright.

Susan Kigali