Rwanda. Rebirth

april morning
clean emerald scent suffused
with a food-like musk
earth aroma on a breeze ​innocent
as a pre-pubescent girl
 
mountains dusted
with the breath of light gossamer
 
pours: the heat of the day
a branding iron
a sting of irredeemable shame
and clarity wavers
 
thwa! Thwa!! THWA!!!
panga and machete fall
for the longest three months
 
a scratchy voice, unbridled, riding radio waves
revenge: a dutiful slave of deception
and the inane letting of blood
as method of tribal sanitation
 
the belly of the land is fertile and rotten
every mass grave, an incubator
prematurely the earth is ripened with death
 
sisters, nephews, wives
mothers, sons, fathers,
daughters, aunts, uncles,
friends, lovers
the earth clutches them to her breast
 
embraced in Her soil​
the dance of the dead
sent syncopated ripples over the Keraga river
it flows silver and blood
 
each river that has flowed as such
unique to life itself, a new vein
in the earth’s placenta
 
Rwanda. Rebirth.

Stand off

Break my fingers if I am to care
A piano player doesn’t fear piercing stares
 
I tell you, it is just one life
carrying hornets in your mouth
 
Cornerstones and cacti pave this course
Gardened by expectant frivolity
 
Gathered at its edges
By determined fingers

Playtime

the bridge of your brow
the ridge of your nose
the arch of your lip
the hill of your chin
 
the paths my eyes love to run along
backwards and forwards, up and down
a child at tireless play
 
falling flat on my back with giggles in my belly
rolling onto my side  looking at them all again
 
jumping off the bridge of brow
freefalling off the ridge of your nose
sitting like a smiling baby Buddah under the arch of you lip
rolling pin down the hill of you nose
flopping down onto your chest
run rugged and breathless
laughing doing it all again