can you read the face of a river?

Image Credit: Shutterstock

my grandmother once told me that a river is just like us. but it is more, she said.

she would take me to the river and ask me, “is she happy, grandson?”

and as a child i would tell her, “how can I tell?”

she would tell me that if she were happy,

would she frolic about, throwing up her arms

and uproot trees at her banks, just as an excited teenager would?


or would she just lie as a love-smitten girl would
 
on her bed and just smile? 
 

(now, I got confused) 
 

would the quiet waters be the face of seething anger— the type of anger that ripples on the 

surface and boils inside  the treacherous waters known to drown full-sized men?


i have seen cheerful, boisterous waters swallow a man and I thought, “here you go, capricious 

waters, you don’t kill people in your excitement!” 

and in some afternoons, the same waters, then in seething, raging anger but just flowing 

gracefully  have hugged the feet of men who crossed to their safety.


Chinjakuku— he was our village tailor. he got drunk one day.  river suam was in a cheerful, 

boisterous mood. so it was throwing up twigs and knocking off stones. she was in her element. 

Chinjakuku—alcohol stirring revolt in his head—was also in a cheerful, boisterous mood. he 

stepped into the waters and his flailing arms soon lost their strengths as he was suffocated by 

the embrace of the waters.

it was like when you throw up a child up and clutch it and throw it higher and higher and it 

slips through your hand. love is like that.  and when we searched for Chinjakuku, river suam 

just tucked him under her bosom. for one day. 


then next morning, he was floating and the waters were just aloof, innocent even, as if nothing 

had happened. 

the same waters that have quenched the thirsts of travelers with parched throats. 

the same waters that have hugged the feet of travellers who have crossed it to safety.

 
no, grandmother.

are these waters happy or sad or excited or hospitable? 

i can’t tell.

i am still on the river’s journey to read her face just like a palmist reads our future.




c) Salem Lorot/ echoesofthehills 2017

~

for Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Flood

my faith is not dead

dear Lokwanale,

my faith is not dead.

the blood shed on the ndazabazadde,

the torture tree at Namugongo,

the leaping flames from

burning reed that

rose

from human feet to head

as Mukaajaanga’s men speared and axed

and executed

all for defying the King

and believing in God.

they dragged them on their bare backs,

dear Lokwanale.

their flesh torn

their bones jutting

the open palms of the pyre

welcomed their sore bodies

soon the cackling sounds of burnt flesh reeked

not curses did Mukaajaanga’s men hear

but the silent rising crescendo of hymns.

yes, my faith is not dead.

for where they died in 1886

is this poem now sprout.

at Busaale, where Ssenkoole burnt Lwanga

under Ggirikiti tree

at the very spot where the pyre lay

and a few metres where their ashes are kept

was this poem written in my heart.

C) Salem Lorot/echoesofthehills 2017

~

 for Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Faith

Notes:

On Wednesday, 1^st February 2016, I visited both the Catholic Basilica at Busaale, Namugongo and the Anglican site where the Uganda martyrs were executed up to 3^rd June 1886. A total of 25 martyrs were burnt en masse.

We Buried That Foolish Youth Yesterday

That foolish youth was buried yesterday-

At night.  In darkness. Without tears.

He wore a permanent scowl

On his face that bore scars of knives;

The top two buttons of his shirt were unbuttoned

To reveal a chest the size of two concrete slabs sitting on each other.

His gait was of a prowling violence

In human flesh;

Where he stepped, clods of soil whimpered

In mortal fear.

Old men in my village asked him, ‘Son,

Why can’t you make peace with people?

Show us your tasus-riddled, pus-infested buttocks

So that we may prick it with thorns and make you whole again.’

He would brandish his fingers at the old men

And throw words carelessly the way a drunkard would do

When hopelessly drunk in high-noon.

He had dropped out of school and would speak

A smattering of English:

“Me, we are the ones they call bad, friend; wrong number!”

“ What is this staphylococcus telling me? Do you even know what staphylococcus means?”

We buried him, that foolish youth.

A decomposing flesh, so vulnerable, it was a pity.

No one cried: the dark figures that hurriedly buried him

Just shook their heads

Those fingers he brandished in anger

Were frail, hopeless, decomposing flesh.

When the mound had formed on this unmarked grave,

The village sighed.

The staphylococcuses had the last laugh. 

C) Salem Lorot/ echoesofthehills 2017

~

For Poets United Midweek Motif-Unity

The prompt given by Susan this week was on unity. This was my attempt on this subject.