100 Days

A is for Acholi

Song & Dread

COVID meditations from literary phenom Otoniya J. Okot Bitek

Rife with the paradoxical forces of boredom and intensity, the early days of COVID-19 passed under an inescapable pall. The poems of Song & Dread seek quietude, order, refuge, and space within that shroud. They remind us of community, connectedness, and what is inherently shared. Here Otoniya J. Okot Bitek becomes a record keeper, observing the contradictory, symbiotic relationship between the quotidian and the extraordinary. These works are of their time, while remembering an existence outside it. With a keen eye, Okot Bitek documents the ways the strange can become normalized when there is no other option.

The Weekly Pause (Humanity United)

grass[1] woven[2] into[3] language[4]

 

 

 

 

 

[1] woven into a mosquito’s nest for babies our grandmother told us mosquitoes have nests i should have thought to ask but i never questioned the fact from our grandmothers fingers twisting knowledge plaiting strands of grasses now you try she told each of us   & these days i still remember what kinds of grasses can make nests that need to be woven tightly because they taught us in school that mosquitoes sucked at our blood anopheles mosquitoes female mosquitoes never thinking we needed to hold on to our girl blood too because female anopheles mosquitoes needed ours to grow their babies so our grandmother taught us how to make nests & these days I hold strands of grasses in my fingers which have a thin memory of how to fold them   i still know to pick the cylindrical ones the ones with feathered tops that we cut off because they were not part of the nests but my brain holds on to my grandmother’s voice between languages & the texts that we read in school from which we learned to spell nest & nets so how was i to hear different because i still never read anywhere that acholi made mosquitoes nets to stop the mosquitoes from biting our babies & my fingers still don’t remember & books still don’t know
[2] baskets
[3] knowledge for those who don’t live between languages
[4] which then holds on to us     my fingers race through the keyboard but can’t remember the pattern of my grandmother’s mosquito nets

 

 

Video credit: Humanity United with thanks.

glove1 we2 were the ones3 that didn’t fit4 so they5 were6 acquitted7 weren’t8 they9 while10 we11 got12 tossed13 back14 into the box15 got labelled16 stamped17 with18 date19 & time20 & forgotten21

1 department compartment

2 department compartment

3 department compartment

4 department compartment

5 department compartment

6 department compartment

7 department compartment

8 department compartment

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10department compartment

11department compartment

12department compartment

13department compartment

14department compartment

15department compartment

16department compartment

17department compartment

18department compartment

19department compartment

20department compartment

21department compartment

 

gratitude1 because2 where are you from3 because4 wow you’ve been here for such a long time because5 so you must have come here as a child because you’re such a long way from your home because6 because7 where did you learn to speak english so good because8 I’m just curious because your accent is so charming because9 you don’t look or sound like you’re from here because I’ve never seen you before

1 because i must feel so lucky to live in this country
2 where am i from where am i from where am i really really from 3 magic i’m from clouds from anywhere of nowhere that could fit
within the limits of your imagination
4 i know what alienation sounds like i really do
5 right you didn’t hear what I said can i repeat myself I have such
a sing songy way of speaking
6 these are your concerns how far i am away from home
7 at the borders between nations our tongues are measured & this
time they let me in
8 i still know what alienation sounds like I hear it every day

9 so i cannot forget what alienation sounds like

I hold my madness to my chest
after the dogs have gotten here

I hold my madness to my chest
because chest madness is silence everywhere else

God in the basement drunk
& it’s only just past noon
God in the basement in bits
& I’ve failed to put him back together

So if time won’t do?
Can we count words to remember the lives we lost on that day?

With what words?
With what stories can we tell
when we round off figures of people who lived their lives, or not;
madness just
madness just
madness across timelines
madness beyond graphs
madness beyond the clotheslines
lines & lines & lines & lines

except for the spot at the fence
where the neighbours haggle over who’s going to pay for what

What stories are there to tell in the presence of lovers
what of nature
what of annual cycles
what of wind & ocean rising to meet the stars?
What of the sun?

Yesterday you got out for the first time since last Monday
I told you to wear your madness around you like a cape
you refused
then you rushed back into the house
howling, splintering, gasping for breath

You’ve got to keep your madness to yourself
I’m telling
you just must
the dogs are coming
& the sun is not your friend
the dogs are coming
& the sun won’t be your friend

Superwoman cape
for Superwoman nothing

What words can rise up
collect itself like a hill or a mountain
on Monday morning on the way to work
same as it has always been:
we have nothing
we are nothing
time is nothing
& the mountains & hills will mock us until the end

So this is why I keep mine close to me
these are the end days

God in the basement in pieces
God toes scattered across the carpet
& God digits remain on the coffee table

Copyright © Juliane Okot Bitek. Originally published in EVENT Magazine (Issue 47.1, Spring/Summer 2018).

The Dogs are Coming by Juliane Okot Bitek

36.

On the other side of Saturday, she is shiny with desire

Today, not so much

 

Desire for what?

A clean house?

Well-behaved children?

A successful practice?

An unwavering hand at her back?

 

Saturdays leave much to be desired

Breakfast in bed for a tired woman

One day in the year

Two, three

A bouquet of flowers

Weloveyouweloveweloveyouwedo

A lop-sided smile

A small pinch

 

Ah, bwana, lakini wewe?

Let us not arouse the dead

 

37.

Distinctions:

1. Your loveliness — for this there is no struggle

2. Your location on the east gate. No one is coming to acknowledge your presence

3. The relationship between the breeze and a full skirt

4. There is nothing else but you

 

38.

Grace Lee Boggs on the period of transition:

“I’m very conscious of the sense of time.  How long will I live?  I’m very conscious of what time it is on the clock of the world.  As I have grown older, I think more in terms of centuries, whereas eight or nine years ago, I was only thinking about decades.”

 

It’s almost morning in the clock of the world

A chandelier in the living room swings gently on it’s own, remember?

 

A pale sky

A tired night

An almost morning in the clock of the world

The earth itches in yet another spot

The first sign the the cold season is over — earthworms wriggle out

The first sign that the cold season will never be over — Grace Lee Boggs is gone