Homecoming

And the lost crows return home:
No more dead nights but dawn
Of new old days brooding crows
On spun arms of baobab brows
Preaching spiced phrases of days bygone.

And they’ve changed shapes:

They have undergone plastic surgery
And have become sane again
For new tricks in the book of pain
Yet haven’t left their banging crockery.

And they still sing their sweet slogans:

No old face is new in a mask
Though they croak like night owls
Whistling strange tunes for idiot fowls
Locked inside a vacuum flask.

And shock shall slay some again:

And some shall fall upside down
From the red slippery anthills
Of Savannah, we’ll enjoy peals
Of sniffling shrieks downtown.

And these crows roost again:

Haven’t they yet run out of mud
And returned in life’s mockery
That they bang poetic crockery
Till we’re disquieted by bodyguards?

Tomorrow, they’ll all return:

If they get this finishing mud
And they’ll perch and balance again
Till we begin to feel their wings gain
Sudden heights, their claws begin to thud.

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Kabedoopong Piddo Ddibe’st is an internationally acclaimed published multi-talented Ugandan poet, visual and aural artist, editor, amateur actor, literary and cultural activist, featured in numerous both national and international online and print magazines, newspapers, and anthologies; born in Kitgum, northern Uganda.

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