Sometimes In April

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(This poem is inspired by the dialogue of the main character of a movie on Rwandan Genocide titled ‘Sometimes in April’)

Sometimes in April

In the land of a thousand hills

Madness descended upon man

Brother hacked fellow brother

In an orgy of death

Sometimes in April

Fear crept on spines

For days, men lived in the wild

Stench of death diffused

The hills foggy with uncertainty

Sometimes in April

In the land of a thousand hills

My friend was whisked out of a Jeep

And shot three times on the head

I could not bury his body

I only saw his eyes jut with surprise

When he fell to the ground

He still had that awe

Sometimes in April

In the land of a thousand hills

Blood streamed into swamps

Piles of bodies lay decomposed

A blotch, a taint dots the continent’s linen

Sometimes in April

In the land of a thousand hills

The rains pound the hills, grasses grow

Buds sprout, butterflies swirl

Life is born anew

Yet in this same April

Sometimes back

Clouds had unclasped

To release rain droplets

But upon second-thoughts

When a machete met human head

Or a woman was ravished

The clouds froze, mortified

Dust hung suspended

Neither afloat, neither settled

Horrified by a headless child

Grasses turned ashen, afraid of green

To dramatize the somber mood

Sometimes in April.

C) Lorot Salem 2011