Your teeth have fled their nest.
Dust rules over the Holy Book.
Curtain folds are like a nurse’s starched uniform.
Your soup bowl has become a roach’s pool.
Your appetite is painted in dull colours.
Your walking stick is the centre in the spider’s handcraft.
Vivacity basks in a second childhood.
The sturdy voice that bounced on walls is now drained.
The kite-sharp eyesight simmers on dying fire.
Your countenance is the light of a fast sinking sun.
Muscles of steel now soft like newly ground corn.
Humour has abandoned your garden.
Where are the mighty hands that lifted me when I fell?
Silent weeds strangle years.
Tendrils of life are tangled up and bewildered.
Your worm-eaten garb sways in the wind.
My eyes well up and rage weighs my throat down.
You are the mahogany never meant to shed his leaves.
Sophie N. Bamwoyeraki (20th century) Uganda
Source: Suubi. A collection of short stories and poems from the African Writers Trust’s creative writing programme produced in association with the British Council, African Writers Trust, 2013
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