By Geraldine Sinyuy, World BEYOND War, November 25, 2020

Elegy for My Brother

Jump, how could you do this to me?

Emma, little bro, can you see me?

Do you also weep this sudden separation?

Emmanuel, what I kept for you,

That parcel I have longed prepared in my mind,

Your own share of the fruits of

My toil in the world of knowledge,

Has remained but a dream.

Emma, you mocked at me.

My plans, brother, are frozen,

Frozen by the sudden seizure

Of that breath that gave you life.

Brother, you went silently like a stranger.

You did not leave a word for me.

Jump, your absence slaps me on the face.

My shoulders have fallen,

for I hold no more pride of a brother!

Emma, now I speak in retrospectives:

“We were…”

Yes, that is the tense your departure has left me with!

Geraldine Sinyuy (PhD), is from Cameroon. In 2016, she performed one of her poems entitled “On a Lone and Silent Hill” during an International Conference on World Environment Day at Imo State University, Nigeria.