An Acholi

An Acholi!

Kom Acholi!

Gin Acholi, bedo Acholi!

I am the drumbeat before dawn

a whisper between stars and soil,

where ancestors walk barefoot

through the silence of millet fields,

and lightning speaks in the tongue of gods.

An Acholi!

Kom Acholi!

Gin Acholi, bedo Acholi!

I am the child of Rwot,

born not from blood alone,

but from Wang Oo; the fire of story,

where truth and proverb kiss in the smoke.

I do not just live.I echo.

I do not just speak.I inherit.

Pe an dano keken.An Acholi!

Pe an lalweny keken.An Acholi!

Call me Ladit’s pride,

call me twon coo wod luo,

for I carry the ache of war,

and the wine of survival

in the same gourd.

My name is a war song turned lullaby

a sharp spear

that now plants cassava.

My tongue can summon the rain,

or silence a storm.

An Acholi!

An latin lyec

Kom Acholi!

I have danced with scars on my shoulders,

to Bwola; the dance of kings,

where circles are not just shapes

but eternal covenants

of community, of return.

I speak in metaphors

my enemies cannot translate.

I love like a land that knows hunger

but still grows mango trees in July.

Cik Acholi!

Kwon Acholi!

Tic Acholi!

I am the echo of ox-plows and ululations,

the breath between love and prayer.

You’ll find me in footprints along Awere stream,

in names carved on termite trees,

in children who play with broken hoes

and dream in full harvests.

I am not broken.

I am forged.

Bent by history,

but never unstrung.

An Acholi!

Gin ma loya pe!

Acholi dong!

I am a night sky without fences

each star an elder’s eye,

watching, remembering, blessing.

I am Acholi.

Not by chance

by chuny, by choice,

by the poetry braided in 

my veins.