An Ode to our Fallen and Buku Moja
A lamentation to those who have been forced by the repressive machinery of the Tanzanian state to pay the ultimate price, and poetic protestations refusing tragic silence.
In the wake of the recent violence and political unrest in Tanzania, I found myself searching for language strong enough to hold both grief and outrage. These two poems, “An Ode to Our Fallen” and “Buku Moja,” emerge from that search.
These poems are laments, ways of remembering those whose lives were cut short, and of refusing the silence that often follows tragedy.
Both poems attempt to honour the dead, confront the living, and insist that no act of brutality, however common, should be normalized or forgotten.
An Ode to the Fallen
I
They sharpen their teeth at night,
Drunk with laughter and greed, -
Plotting how they will
Kill
Their own children.
They drink their blood,
Suck the marrow from their trembling bones,
And toss their bodies into hell,
To be forgotten.
A child weeps,
beholding the blood,
that was once, -
His mother’s.
II
But the earth does not swallow
The blood of the innocent.
The guilty shall drink
Every drop -
Of blood that was shed
Until their stomachs swell
With their own sin.
III
They shall labour,
And grind their teeth
To powder.
Their stomachs,
Shall find no peace
Until they taste the bitterness
Of unripe, undeserved grief.
IV
The world has seen.
The world has heard.
Siku za mwizi ni arobaini.
Buku Moja
(‘Buku moja’ is Swahili slang for one thousand Tanzanian shillings).
I
Take this buku moja,
Go buy Omo,
To wash away
Your mother’s blood
From your doorstep.
Killed, - for existing right,
In the wrong place,
At the wrong time.
II
Take this buku moja,
Go on a daladala.
Pass where Juma was shot.
Pretend you don’t remember
The sound of the bullet
That struck him
While his hands were up,
Surrendering.
While he sang the national anthem.
III
Take this buku moja,
Go buy a kitenge,
Cover the body of your sister,
Lest the children see a corpse
Before they can even speak.
For when they see this injustice,
They can no longer be children.
IV
Take this buku moja,
Go buy kifurushi,
Call your grandmother,
Check that she wasn’t shot
By the hooligans, -
While selling tomatoes in the market,
To live.
V
Take this buku moja,
Go on a boda boda
To where they last saw your uncle.
Collect the blood that still pools
Outside his shop, -
For that is all that’s left to bury.
Wipe your tears
With the back of your hand,
Still stained
With yesterday’s blood.
VI
Take this buku moja,
Go buy Konyagi, -
To wake yourself
From this nightmare.
Nuru Hai is a poet and social justice activist.