my father was born where the river bends like a tired arm

after carrying our fondom all day long.

my grandmother washed banana leaves in its murmuring hands,

and cabbages, and sugarcane,

and all the things we bathed in the current

so we would not walk the long road home

to fetch water from the other river

before the cooking fire could breathe.

my mother was also born where the river bends like a tired arm,

after carrying our fondom through the heat of the day.

my uncle washed peanuts in its restless currents

whenever we had to cook them right there on the farm,

when hunger caught us mid-harvest,

hands deep in the soil’s generosity.

i would cup the water in my hands,

too lazy to fetch the aluminum ones from the raffia bag.

drinking from my palms felt better ;

the river’s flow sliding over my lips

like a quiet argument between us.

in that current, we were bound,

two forces meeting and knowing each other.

my cousins learned to swim before they learned to write;

and when we cried as children,

the river always answered first.

in 2050, people call this place a “carbon sink”,

a “global stabilizer”,

a “strategic ecosystem”.

but to me it is simply home;

full of laughter that smells like mbounga ,

of drums that rise from the dark like warm fireflies,

of trees taller than any lie told about us.

the world counts its carbon;

we count our blessings.

and though the maps no longer say so,

we still belong here.