for the students murdered and injured when the school building fell in Jos

 

From where I lay among a litter of bodies,
I could see a boy with a phone thrust to his right ear.
As I watched his lips I could make out the weight on his lips—
as if pebbles rose out of the depths of his chest.
I leaped out of my body feeling the cold
growing wild in the bones. I walked down the streets of Jos
everywhere foggy from a bombshell of loss.
Hearts heavy with grief, grope the wind like eyes,
like hands searching for where to place their sorrows.
Beside the Catholic Church, opposite Saint Academy school,
a crowd stood and the air soaking with the wails
of bereaved mothers. All the while we hovered over the rubble
like indecisive hawks but they remained oblivious to our presence.
The crumpled building lay beside its mauled captives
lying lifeless after the walls had knocked them breathless.
On the floor, a large number of dead pupils lay in torn uniforms,
all waiting to be claimed and sent to the mortuary.
From the smile on their faces, before they fled
with death into the distance, one could tell how joyful
they were before the walls hit them. A familiar face
stood somewhere among the onlookers. I could see the tears
streaming down his face as he held my body in his hands and wept.
Oh, what words of comfort can stitch the torn heart?
A man tried to console his wife but his words
were ceaselessly punctuated by sobs as he mourned
the loss of his four children bathed in the metallic taste of blood.
He tried to soothe her with the words “Ndo, oga di mma”
which translates to sorry in the white man’s tongue,
but language is inadequate to lighten this burden of grief.
The ambulance arrives after minutes of waiting.
It was in these moments that I imagined how vast the cemetery
with lots of unfinished dreams poured into its mouth
every year. When you go there, you will meet
a poignant landscape of memories beside the grave markers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Dan Seddon on Unsplash