To my mother, a poem by Alain Mabanckou

I have lodged my flagpole at the heart of this territory
Here I am, far from my people
Now learning to dance on one foot
And disremember my bipedal custom
The red earth of my home
Hasn't left my soles since the last migration
Slumber resides beneath my eyelids
But I sleep with only one eye
With only one ear
I married the fate of the leaf
When I detach myself from the tree and fly with the wind
I always fall back at the foot of the tree
And even though I've been swept away by a river current
In each of my dreams
This name returns
Two syllables
Congo
I am now unable to resist
When pain beckons me to the hours where sleeplessness
Haunts the eyelid
I find the shadows of our village in the night
And my heart beats to the rhythm of a herd
Fearful of an impending tornado
Left to water the arid soil of return
These spilling torrential tears
Are the bed of my grief
When I return from my pilgrimage
The door of the house will be shut
A few sheep will graze the last grass of the neighbourhood
I'll head to the cemetery
And see the grave all by itself
By the tree that gave birth to my first poems
That's where she lies, my mother
And that is where I have been living for a long time.

This poem was read in New York, on the occasion of Pen American

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Translated from the original French by Rethabile Masilo

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