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  • The Village
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The Village

Marie-Léontine Tsibinda

Can you ever forget the village?
Can you ever forget its shore
from where the splashing of water rises in evening?

Can you ever forget its springs?
Can you ever forget its banana leaves
that rustle in the darkness?
Listen to the song that unfolds:
it is a chorus of children in the pirogue
that glides on the river

Can you feel the air of the day vibrate
and can you feel the rich soil tremble
when the fire of a train pushes through the silence of the
mountains?

Look at the sun falling asleep
like him unfold your mat and sleep
for tomorrow is another day.


Marie-Léontine Tsibinda

from A Rain of Words: A Bilingual Anthology of Women’s Poetry in Francophile Africa, edited by Irène Assiba d’Almeida (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2009)

translated by Janis A. Mayes

Reproduced by kind permission of the translator and publisher.

Tags:

African poetry Congo nostalgia villages

About this poem

This poem, representing Congo, is part of The Written World – our collaboration with BBC radio to broadcast a poem from every single nation competing in London 2012.

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