31/10/2025
Tomorrow we go again. As we put yet another loved one to rest, I recall the sorrow I had in my heart that led me to writing this. I pictured it not from imagination, but from a clear and vivid memory, and the grief was was reborn...
Nsima Ya Pa Malilo
https://www.facebook.com/61562271242961/posts/122145500384409041/?app=fbl
Inspired by SISTA D
NSIMA YA PA MALILO
Backs bent under the shade of the mango tree,
Hot air blows on the face from the boil
The nkuni, chopped and beaten by young men from old bark down in the field,
burn from the open flames,
Red with fury,
til grey with ash,
It burns.
The mothers —
My mother, your mother, his mother,
Joined both in motherhood and sisterhood,
stir with the strength of a thousand ancestors before them.
They laugh,
They joke,
They teach the young ones what they know,
Your sister, my sister, his sister,
This kind of knowledge is passed on through blood and bone
The tears are dry now,
But the pain,
though silent,
lingers like an echo in a deep cave of despair.
The fathers —
My father, your father, his father,
Wait eagerly in the tent,
Sharing old tales of their youthful days over munkoyo and local lagers,
Their pain stays quiet,
buried deep beneath ego and bravado.
Hurt still they will.
With bleeding hearts,
Stolen dreams,
Still, the stomach growls.
And so,
Through your pain,
My pain,
Our pain;
We eat.