Wode Maya
The son of every African Walaya
My village elders are proud of you
Come for honeymoon with your
wife Miss Trudy
I will tell you how to climb the rooftop of Aduel
Phenomenon
Towers that stand with the feet of ancestors.
And as you climb
Take my all and dine:
Taste my meat and fish
Taste my milk and honey
Taste my millet and beans and peas
Take the tobacco pipe and taste
The medicine of active gods
As you climb
Know all shelters stand here with the feet of our ancestors
Towers made of Ubuntu’s spirit
Where to stand when night falls
And talk to the village full moon
In the forgotten African language
Hail nights that strengthen your feet
To carry towers for the next generation
The ancestors mow the grass when summer arises,
Paint the sky to glimmering blues in tropical daylight.
Wode Maya,
The proud son of every African Walaya
Your tongue is made of all the words unburied
With Nelson Mandela
The blood and skin of Kwame Nkrumah
Tell your wife, Miss Trudy,
The village ways are dark and woody
But my ancestor smear out the night fright
From the heart with Lulu oil
You’d gaze till dusk at beautiful things kept secret by war
You would sail around the sudd watching
Wrestle like wild buffalos
Jumping for a dance like antelopes
Before sunset on the beach of Lake Yirol and River Bar-nam,
And return to climb the rooftop of Aduel.
Featured photograph by Olivier Mugwiza | The New Times
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Adut Loi Akok is a South Sudanese award-winning poet and spoken word artist currently based in Kigali, Rwanda. He is the author of two poetry books and a UN-YOUTH Fellow. His books, If Only the City Cries, published by African Ink Publishers (Nairobi), and The Beauty Within Us, published by Afrogate Publishers (USA), showcase his literary talent. In 2022, Adut was the national second-place winner in the poetry category of the art competition sponsored by UNFPA in South Sudan. He was also a guest poet at the #ShareYourLight campaign by UNHCR Africa (2023) and the African Writers Conference in Kigali (2024). His work has been featured in The Kalahari Review, Plot Creatives Magazine, Konch Magazine, Afritondo Media & Publishing, Scribes Ink Publishers, Mount Kenya Times, and several anthologies, including Best New African Poets and My Mental Health Anthology (2022).
