05/12/2025
𝗛𝗘𝗟𝗟𝗢 𝗗𝗘𝗖𝗘𝗠𝗕𝗘𝗥!
Kampala sleeps beneath a red shroud; every breath draws in the ghost of parched earth.
Dust rises like ancestral smoke from the cracked veins of the city, painting ankles ochre, turning eyelashes into tiny desert palms.
The sun is a dull coin hammered flat against grey felt; even the matooke leaves hang their heads, whispering surrender. Yet listen.
Beneath the choking haze, a child’s laugh still slices the air clean.
Bare feet drum the rust-coloured paths, chasing a kite made of polythene and yesterday’s dreams.
Old women sway past with jerrycans crowned like golden queens, their hips rolling to the same ancient rhythm that outlasts drought and presidents alike.
Somewhere a radio spits Lingaflo into the heat, and hips answer before minds can complain. The earth is thirsty, yes.
Rivers shrink to silver threads, maize stands like tired soldiers with broken AK-47s, and goats chew on shadows.
But the people—ah, the people—refuse to drink despair. They plant anyway.
They marry anyway.
They roast maize on glowing coals and pass one cob between six hands, arguing over Premier League scores as if the sky will rain goals if they believe hard enough.
This is Uganda’s stubborn poetry in the dying days of 2025:
We cough dust and still sing.
We wipe sweat with the same cloth we use to polish hope.
We look at a sky that has forgotten how to cry and answer,
“Not yet, old friend. Our turn to weep joy first.” So tonight we sweep the red earth from our doorsteps one more time,
light candles that tremble like small defiant hearts,
and lift our voices over the crackle of firewood: “Thank you, 2025.
You came fierce and dry-lipped,
yet you will live us alive, laughing, together, unbroken.”
The clouds are gathering somewhere beyond the Indian Ocean’s swollen belly;
we can smell them in our prayers.
When they finally remember us,
they will find a people already dancing.
Faces painted with the same red dust
that will one day turn to mud beneath celebrating feet. Until then,
we keep the song warm.
We keep the gate open.
We keep each other. Rain is coming.
But joy is already here.
