The Political Nile
written by: Marial Awendit
@Marial_Awendit
1. (‘Will this boat carry us towards democracy?’)
Breathing in a damp republican air,
Below a clear non-tribal sky,
I step onto a non-tribal boat,
On the political Nile.
The boat steams off,
Wrinkling ripples in the democratic water
& I see, from the eastern bank,
A dark-skinned girl,
Digging up between rows of kale
& pumpkins in her garden,
Her hands may be too busy with a hoe
To beckon a civil war…
And perhaps, the fisherman
Downstream
Is not picking bullets out of his net…
He is not watching a boy in a blue cloak,
Driving non-political cows
Away from the riverbank
And fluting his own anthem.
Above the moving boat,
Bees circle around
A hole in the algae-dappled bough
Of a mango tree,
What if they are citizens
Working for their country,
But un/paid for their honey?
2. (‘There is a drop of imported tea in your beard’)
On the deck of the boat,
Sipping his political tea,
Abudigin tells us he was a comedian,
Before the war.
His favorite joke is about a cattle herder
Who tried to board a plane with a wooden chair
In his hand.
He could not make people laugh easily,
After three towns were raided & deserted.
He took a bus to a refugee camp in Bweyale.
He had a job with a maize farmer.
He was to chase birds off the cobs
And get paid per each bird chased.
By the way of his tale, the birds stopped coming
So now, he shows tourists along the Nile
And prays to a non-tribal God,
To keep war away,
From sending his clients away.
3. (‘What if God does not go on leave?’)
Perhaps, God is still minting barrels
Of non-tribal crude oil,
Ounces of non-tribal gold,
& carats of non-tribal diamonds,
Rows of kale, and
Other things He may sell to nations
For free….
Plus, I may know water from the political Nile
Seeps into the roots of waterlilies
& the dark-skinned girl’s pumpkins,
The way black crude oil drips down
The hands of God,
Into
Earth…
Yet, I do not know how long I can wait
For God, to slap dead the red-bellied mosquito
Sucking blood on my right arm.
- The Political Nile - February 22, 2025
