Freetown Rain
A return after the Sierra Leonean Civil War
NATHAN KWEKU JOHN
before the toubab came
children would decorate
their bedroom walls
with sugar rock from
the rivers of Kono.
during the big rains
silt banks gulp
then burst
with grainy water:
inviting these shine-stones
to creep from their passing
harmattan sleep and soar,
coming to bloom in season,
like the cassava, and the kola,
and the cotton trees.
who then could have known
that these alluvial trinkets
would one day draw blood?
if only the rains had known,
they would have skipped their song
for a season.
if the river sands had known,
they would have hidden
their radiant litter—
if only the children had known.
children would decorate
their bedroom walls
with sugar rock from
the rivers of Kono.
during the big rains
silt banks gulp
then burst
with grainy water:
inviting these shine-stones
to creep from their passing
harmattan sleep and soar,
coming to bloom in season,
like the cassava, and the kola,
and the cotton trees.
who then could have known
that these alluvial trinkets
would one day draw blood?
if only the rains had known,
they would have skipped their song
for a season.
if the river sands had known,
they would have hidden
their radiant litter—
if only the children had known.
June - July 2020. Vol nº1