Dear Nalweyiso #MuwadoLoveLetter20

Seasons have changed a mile, that it rains when once it was dry, and it’s dry when it once rained. It has made the harvest so small and in some places none. Yet, we still work hard. I have to work in order to see you smile. You left before my eye could capture your smile to be mine, maybe my folly was not in stealing it.

I have seen a man go mad, howling as if the pain was from a heart being pulled out. Maybe it was their hearts being pulled out. One strand of hope after another, uprooted never to take life again. For madness is when one’s heart has changed rhythm.

Why can’t a man run mad when the seasons that were wet and dry, become a desert of your smiles? Why can’t a man run naked, if his belief is that winds carry your touch?

I have drunk the drink of madmen, now stars can spell your name Nalweyiso. I have cursed the night with a flood of tears, and mourned pain out of my heart when the sun rises, to remind me of work.

Once it rained to water plants, now, we rig pipes in the gardens to water them. Once it rained so the earth would be quenched, now, cracks are the forms in the soils of my gardens.

When it rained and soils were soft, the edges of my hoe were never blunt. The hoe sharpens itself the more you use it in good soils. Maybe good soil contains the iron that sharpens the hoe. There was once a language spoken between the hoe and the soil, a language soft and easy. There was a language of silence. A language of loudness. It was an alloy of sort. Now, its a war of dust forming whenever the hoe seeks conversation with the soil.

Nalweyiso, wasn’t my love enough for you? Oh, how I miss the patter sound of your feet as you roomed around my heart. The echoes of your words are a distant memory, like peaks of Rwenzori beyond the clouds.

When Basudde sang of your name, he voiced the longing of men, us, whose fingers seek the winds to feel the texture of your skin, who look for your smile in other women. Come back to me.

Yours, Bwojji

Img: matthiashaker.com