Listen, my clansmen,
I cry over my husband
Whose head is lost.
Ocol has lost his head
In the forest of books.
When my husband
Was still wooing me
His eyes were still alive,
His ears were still unblocked,
Ocol had not yet become a fool
My friend was a man then!
He had not yet become a woman,
He was still a free man,
His heart was still his chief.
My husband was still a Black man
The son of the Bull
The son of Agik
The woman from Okol
Was still a man,
An Acoli…
The papers on my husband’s desk
Coil threateningly
Like the giant forest climbers,
Like the kituba tree
That squeezes other trees to death;
Some stand up,
Others lie on their backs,
They are interlocked
Like the legs of youths
At the orak dance,
Like the legs of the planks
Of the goggo fence,
They are tightly interlocked
Like the legs of the giant forest climbers
In the impenetrable forest.
My husband’s house
Is a mighty forest of books,
Dark it is and very damp,
The steam rising from the ground
Hot thick and poisonous
Mingles with the corrosive dew
And the rain drops
That have collected in the leaves…
Oh, my clansmen,
Let us all cry together!
Come,
Let us mourn the death of my husband,
The death of a Prince
The Ash that was produced
By a great Fire!
O, this homestead is utterly dead,
Close the gates
With lacari thorns,
For the Prince
The heir to the Stool is lost!
And all the young men
Have perished in the wilderness!
And the fame of this homestead
That once blazed like wild fire
In a moonless night
Is now like the last breaths
Of a dying old man!
There is not one single true son left,
The entire village
Has fallen into the hands
Of war captives and slaves!
Perhaps one of our boys
Escaped with his life!
Perhaps he is hiding in the bush
Waiting for the sun to set!
But will he come?
Before the next mourning?
Will he arrive in time?
Bile burns my inside!
I feel like vomiting!
For all our young men
Were finished in the forest,
Their manhood was finished
In the class-rooms,
Their testicles
Were smashed
With large books!
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