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For The Orinoco's Sky

For the umpteenth occasion
the engine acts up
somewhere near Tucupita
and I'm below coaxing the works
pranging, banging with wrenches
suddenly Akami is near
to investigate what all the swearing's about
and then Nazirah with her heart-racing 
stethoscopic eyes and then
Boom! backfire

We're all sooty giggles
stumbling up to the deck
trying to unsmirk, stand straight
for the Orinoco's hooded camera 
box of sky
a scudding cloud shutters the sun
forever capturing this disheveled moment
woman and man and child
some sacred family
In A War

Son, fast sprouting into a man
nosy about everything
remember these days
Watch your father cleaning the rifle
study his face, those scarred arms
he was caught in a war
now feel my face, my shattered pulse
I too was caught

Akami smell the malaria in the rain
taste our last bit of food
then touch your stomach
understand its anger
right now you are in a war

One day you will desire the world
insatiably
and then you will leave us
Listen for the big band
jitterbugging on his derelict radio
you will begin to hiccup and dance inside
outwards, everywhere 
temples of indigo and bitter almond

I ask only you remember our faces, our arms
for they are always about you
you will need us when you fight 
the greatest war
comes when all strife ends
and you must learn to survive
when all around you is finally
inconceivably at peace

 

another nun (the sixth) from the Italian Sisters of the Poverelle dies of Ebola in Kikwit on Sunday. She had traveled to Kikwit from Kinshasa before the cause of the epidemic was identified