Kama Sywor Kamanda [Congo / Luxembourg]

 

                             Crickets
 
            The deliverance of ancient times
 
Tonight I bury my legacies under mirages of the desert where
the cricket, that eloquent speaker with vibrant songs in the sands and
groves, piles up its winged eggs.
I will soon see the truth in a silhouette of dust wave its fork
of reminiscences. Anguished loves are taboo for me! The ideal
is covered with a shroud of sorrows invisible to the profane!
The seasons are delivered from time! The full moon in disarray over dunes
is pale and bitter from being unable to influence the tides of sand.
This is the great mystery that surprises us at an age when wings of dreams
mingle with the roots of the soul devoid of memory.
But while the strong winds are familiar to us, the sky in its fury
never ceases to give us cold sweats. Life pays its debts with death.
And perhaps on a day of supreme reconciliation, it will give back
this eternity it has taken.
 
 
           Metamorphosis of the mind
 
We need a foundation for freedoms. I see the sky covered with mirages
of hope and new blood, naked words and unbowed truths.
I see, at the end of the road, this disenchanted people, riddled with hatred and revolt, who feed on cries, tears and absurdities, exposed in its divisions, payable by the ravenous flames of corruption.
I defy the inbred hawks of futile abundance,
the tightrope walkers of good financial governance
who butcher nations on the mountain slopes of betrayal.
I would like to jeer these man-headed vultures in the public square
that fill their bellies with gold bars, precious stones, dirty money
and gut worms of decadence, rejoicing in the putrefied remains
of genocided peoples in plundered lands. There is nothing left
on the blurred thresholds of democracy but mutilated pride,
bodies torn apart by submission and minds hanged on the tree
of the inevitable by manipulation.
I say: "nothing is irreversible”. The fearless lion of our savannahs
backs off when hyenas charge.
 
                          (The Eternity of Days)
 
 
             Border
 
On unpublished pages and the sands of shores delivered from silence I rightfully pierce the mysterious sphere of the living, near or far!
 
Distance between people and the glaring gap between self and superself remind me of who I am and where I’m from! Borders, sources of identities, wave flags of division at every trace and for every allegiance! The stars are like us!
 
This is where night and day meet and confront, the supreme vision of freedoms and duties, taboos and prohibitions, the edge where the rules we submit to all our lives dominate, and, at the border, prejudices mingle with frustrations, and beings, to fulfil their desires, strive to cross, in body and mind.
 
Our thwarted destiny constrained from the very start.
 
Then, passion digging imperceptible furrows in the soul like rivers measures everlasting time!
 
Deep in the moving sky of our trials our dreams clad in lightning announce the advent of boundless humanity!
 
Now time, frozen in the imagination of men, holds its halo suspended at each heartbeat! Breath of origin borne on the wind’s wings!
 
The sea plans to build up wild waves on the deserted banks of hope! The balance between man and Earth that is stayed seems wrecked!
 
Our wandering on the threshold of the world, is it not mere illusion? I remember the language of fulmination!
 
Believers in search of truth climb hills engraved with anecdotes at the call of the supreme absence!
 
The border is not absolute! The border is capable of change! Think, O dreamer of the infinite, of your tireless wandering on the hidden paths of your tomorrows!
 
And exile sets forth its strangest designs for you!
 
                                                                                               (19 November 2022)
 
 
Author’s Bionote :
 
* Kama Sywor Kamanda (Congo, 1952 ) is a writer, poet, dramatist, novelist and storyteller from Democratic Republic of Congo.  He was the founding president of the African Association of Writers. As a writer he subsequently produced a considerable body of literary work, including a dozen anthologies of poetry, several hundred stories, as well as several novels. In 1970, he participated in the creation of the Union of Congolese Writers. Forced to leave the Congo in 1977 due to his political activities, Kamanda lived in various European countries before settling in Luxembourg in 1998. Kamanda's works have been translated into many languages. He has earned several major prizes and distinctions, including the Paul Verlaine Prize from the Académie française (1987), the Louise Labé Prize (1990), the Black Africa Grand Prize for Literature (1991), and the Théophile Gautier prize (1993) from the Académie française.