“In Memory of Ekondo-Titi” by TIMB Sara Augustine Laurence"

Laurence Augustine Sara TIMB is a young Cameroonian poetess. She is the author of the collection of poems "LES CONFIDENCES D’UNE MUSE" published in August 2021. Last year, the society of French poets awarded her the prize of the humanist poetry. Sara is currently

23 years old and is pursuing a PhD at the University of Yaoundé 1.

Author Foreword:

This poem is a tribute to the schoolchildren murdered on November 24, 2021 in Ekondo-titi in the South West region of Cameroon. Like the North West region, this region has been experiencing a crisis since 2016: the NOSO crisis.

This poem, which emanates from a social commitment, is written with humanism so that those who read it will mentally experience suffering quite identical to that of these people and that this kind of horror becomes impossible to conceive, to accept in the mind.

---

 A blackish dawn covered Ndian 

Along National Highway 16, fierce tears wet to the bone.  

A dying ray of sunlight tries to loosen their skeletal fingers, clenched under the 

Frigid cold

Through the cloud of smoke, the city hobbles. 

Men screech and birds fly away, 

Hundreds of bewildered people run haggardly in this dark silence where cries rise. Pain crumples their faces, 

With a dead voice, they call to the sky that you just joined.  

A horde of soldiers surround the place, 

Their radios crackle and fade away. 

In the distance, your remains slumber, 

The ashes of your lives are scattered on the trail that leads to this room that you did not want to leave.  

Everything is gone! 

The school is only a few corners walled with cinder blocks, 

The windows are broken, 

twigs and bits of hair fall in the trickle of blood. 

Your families, adorned with the dark fabrics of the night, cry tirelessly.  

Their tears stream down their faces which now contain a river of sorrow. 

Their eyelids close on this nameless horror. 

A vain color of sunshine and dreary looks illuminates a memory: 

You wore school uniforms, 

Laughing with hope at the promises of the future that your teachers proudly told you. 

Forged of the golden and silver light of your dreams, you take the road little taken, But don't go gently into that good night 

Rage! Rage! Against your murderers.

In your new homes, 

A procession of ghosts walks, 

Their steps on the asphalt disturb for a few moments the silence of the dead 

Still, a memory resounds: 

Your names ring: Jocelyne, Emmanuelle, Kum... 

Forced to walk the road meant for older men 

And our eyelids close on the epitaph where are engraved some notes of your short happiness