Remembering Burundi by Ketty Nivyabandi

Remembering Burundi

I remember you.
A spark tearing the blue sky. Seeds flirting with clouds. Men confiding in stars. 
A song held warm and snug, in dreamy backs. Women smelling of butter. 
A swollen breast. The milky way. Dew quenching the splintered feet.

I remember you.
A dream. Kneaded with laterite and steel.
Proud men, chests bursting full. Spears, hoes laying still on the moist ground. Walking, naked, to the sun.

Butterfly girls. Scattering, flying. Soaking the heavens with colours. 

Smothered laughs. Messy laughs. Free laughs. Laughter in thousands. 

I remember you.
Poised-people. Truth-people. Masterly people. Cracked-but-whole people.
Jade, fleeing beauty.  A jealous, wild, bewitching beauty. 
The kind to burn a prophet’s eyes...
                         A tiny scoop of land that once dared defy the Reich. 

I remember you.
Before your feather-words. Before your paper-sons. 
Before your gaping ground, your wandering children. 
Before your dignity in crumbs. 
For sale. On the sidewalks of famished boulevards. 

I remember you. 
In the furor of my nappy hair. 
In the ink snaking down these trembling hands. 
In my precious dreams, powdered with dust.
In my sweats. In my screams. In my fevers. In my eyes. 
Dangling wide open, from the crescent moon. 

I remember you.
Yesterday still. 
Tomorrow (of course).
This morning. I don’t know.

Ketty Nivyabandi

Ketty Nivyabandi, born in 1978 is a Burundian poet and essayist. Her poetry, written mostly in French and English has appeared online and in several anthologies. Ketty Nivyabandi is popularly known for her significant role in political activism in Burundi when in 2015 the country’s president sparked unrest by illegally bidding for a third term in office.