FINAH SANNEH

FINAH SANNEH Villages were sacked, houses burntMen killed, boys and girls taken awayTears poured like August rain in FreetownSa-lone, my motherland, reduced to rubblesFinah Sanneh, my beautiful wife, also gone Taken away by junta rebels, she vanishedI was caught in the middle of a senseless warI lost sleep since Finah was commandeeredMisfortune had befallen this once peaceful placeAs I sat to wonder which way to go from here Two hundred moons, not days, have goneSince the war ended, I have no glimpse of FinahI have been waiting, hoping to see her againShe is still alive, like a foetus, inside of meDon’t tell me she is dead or has she forgotten me? I have been hit by the hardest bulletShot by the deadliest phallic weaponOf man’s show of power in brutish rapeThe wound is open, bleeding and bitingYet unseen by anyone, but by me alone Like my country, Finah, a victim of wantonnessCaught in politics of war, rooted in greedinessDiamond, supposed to be a blessingBut now a curse, with so much bloodshedAnd atrocities of limb-cutting everywhere Where are the hands to rebuild the nation state?Where are the hands to hold my Finah again?By the backyards and by the streamsideI can still hear the wailing and weepingOf mothers who refused to be consoled Crying will only give me more headachesAs my mother cried to death when father was killedI am going to the capitol, to beg the media peopleTo find a space, a press release, for Finah SannehDon’t cry, mother of a single child, don’t cry…