Poem: The Revolutionary

The Revolutionary
Andrée Blouin, 1921-1986

A hungry child can never truly sleep. In the orphanage
for sinful offspring – our fathers white, our mothers
African – the nuns were merciless, severe. I shook
by night inside a narrow, iron cot, aware only
of my body’s hunger, a heavy shadow
shuttering my limbs. I prayed for pity
in the nothing-blue that slowly turned
to grey – another dawning misery. My later
love for liberty began beneath the weight.
Softened after rain, I ate the red-mud bricks
that walled the yard in fingerfuls, to ease
the ricket-sting within my belly. Eventually
I sickened; a nurse and officer appeared
to valuate my case; the reverend mother
eyed me down. Knuckle-tough, the holy
order washed their fists of me, like dirt.
Cruelty, you see, ensures reiteration:
the orphanage and colony were images
of one another, their legatees incurably
suspicious, incapable of kindness
to the Africans they ruled. Sickly, sore,
dispatched away, my life began again
in freedom: mending coverlets and dresses
for imperious françaises, plantation wives
intent on delegation. I worked, in truth,
unendingly, determined to survive:
my labour served me well. When
Guinea first, and then the Parti Solidaire
demanded heartened soul, unstinting
dedication, day and night, I gave my all,
humming like a never-empty engine
of vivacity for Africa, my nation. Long
debased, the cresting Congo filled
my veins with euphony and joy – a song
of jubilation, born of fire, tears, and blood,
now winnowed to an ache. I strode as one
among the risen generation. Possessed
of an uncommon poise, Gizenga always
seemed at home in quietude: the Belgians
feared his silence, knowing him a strategist,
percipient and fierce; he listened like a man
in meditation, untroubled by the fray
to which he nonetheless devoted
both the clarity and passion of a saint.
Struggling together, comrades in the fight,
I considered him a friend. And dear Patrice…
as if in fever, I recall his grace, the easy
trust he held in those around him, and
the smiling way he seemed to bless
the people he addressed, gliding
lightly when he stepped, alive to hope,
assured of the integrity of service
to the cause: the Congolese empowered
by the Congolese themselves, the copper-
hearted mercenaries tossed into the tide.
A dignified idealist, he radiated calm.
Assessing the equation, the European
lackeys sprang a trap: the president
renditioned, his body would be cut
in blocks, and dipped in acid
swilling in a barrel. They burned
the living trace of him to vapour, ordering
the rest of us to leave or disappear.
They kept a single tooth for decoration.
His dream and he are vivid to me still.