From Rain to Rain
By Karamoh Kabba, USA.
It rains fervidly at every sunset.
Small, medium and large cylinders
burst in skyward fireballs
triggered by men dressed for destruction
light pitch-dark skies.
Bean-size-to-big-bit shrapnel converge
on our zinced roof
we dodge beneath a hardwood table.
Through the back door
drenched in dripping drains
in a bamboo thatch makeshift shelter;
we quiver as quetzals
dipped in ice water
she walks around
barrens waterways as new-fangled fertile
and fends off millipedes and centipedes.
We shove, squeeze and seize tight in waterless spots
her cares and fidgets
soothing us from fading.
Sometimes it pours
sometimes it drizzles
but the orchard rains fruity hails too.
So we survive the shrapnel and torrential rain.
About the Author:
Karamoh Kabba is a native of Peyima, Kamara Chiefdom, Kono District, Republic of Sierra Leone. Kabba is the author of the seminal work, A Mother’s Saga: An Account of the Rebel War in Sierra Leone, a memoir of the decade-long rebel conflict in Sierra Leone and Lion Mountain: A Perilous Evolution of the Dens.
Kabba has published several verses of poems on the highly acclaimed web site, Sierra Leone Web. He has also published a fine poem, Poverty amidst Gold and Diamonds in With Hearts Ablaze, an anthology of The International Library of Poetry. He lives with his wife Maria and children Oscar, Kemoh and Fatima Kabba in Potomac, Maryland. Kabba is the founder, President & Chief Executive Officer of Sierra Leone Youth Lending Hand (SLYLH), a public trust institution, organized to assist the youth of Sierra Leone in their quest for post-war rehabilitation in education, health and counseling.
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