During my younger years in Burundi, I sensed the tension between different Burundian groups at times, but just in small ways. I’m not really sure when I realized the enormity of that conflict, which ultimately led to many killings and caused neighbors and friends to flee to other countries.
One event which remains especially vivid in my memory is finding out soldiers had taken away our African pastor and his sons. They were never seen again, and presumably died at the hands of the government. Such happenings made me wonder, “Why them and not me?”
Initially, my poem started out with a fun image, lighting sparklers in the back yard, and then evolved to include thoughts on “vanishing.”
FOURTH OF JULY IN BURUNDI
At twilight
the sly Southern Cross
beams,
convinces us
it’s brighter than
our Northern
constellations.
Mother takes us outside
to celebrate America’s Fourth,
continents away
from grandparents
uncles, aunts,
cousins.
Sparklers fizz.
Our tilted faces
here
and gone
there
and vanished.
How many faces
vanished
over the border
into Tanzania
just across
rows of mountains
filling our picture window?
Each of us
children
screams
“Light another!”
Night closes in.
We clutch
the thin wires
as sparklers
sputter
and fade.
