Reminiscences Poem by Edouard BIZIMANA

Reminiscences of innocence
Never knew it would make sense
As time takes me back
To the recollections of my young age
I remember a sunny afternoon,
Alone in the wild
In search of the unknown
Why did I lose myself
From the loud school playground?
I do not remember.
No Peter, No John nor James around
And no sound coming from the cloud
As I was not to the mountain to pray
But whispers from within my heart and mind
Asking whose beloved son was I?
This, I remember:
Sitting on a rock on Gitaramuka hill,
Did I find myself,
Contemplating landscape
Listening to the wind
And scratching my thigh with a stick.
Strange words I wrote
But quickly disappeared
From my head and mind
No pen did I have, but
With a stick my pain I penned
I wish I could remember
The force that impelled me
To leave the folk around me
I wish I could know
The spirit that took me to the hill
But only reminiscent bits
Of a lovely moment remain.
A moment of communion
With nature, with my inner-self
I wish I could recollect
The messages of the wind,
The words of the melodious
Songs coming to my soul
I wish I could read
The words that I wrote
On my thigh of a school boy
Lost in the wilderness
Away from teachers and classmates.
Neither my mind nor my thigh paper
Did save the divine words, for me to ink.
For a time, my heart bled for the loss
But quickly came to forget
The words the mind of a school boy
Could not apprehend:
"Sic parvis magna"
"Sic parvis magna."
I thought I had lost my mind!
Forgive my misfortune;
I was only a school boy
A fool,a poet in the making.