The Mighty River Nile

By Stephen Pech Gai
Stephen Pech Gai's stories

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Upon my shores, the pyramids stand tall beyond the clouds over the Sahara desert.

Upon my shores, the ruled raise aid, and sing lullabies to the Pharaoh of old.

Upon my shores, the kings enjoy homage, guerdons, and trounce kingdoms to put up empires.

Upon my shores, the Nuba and Cushite kingdoms ponder orders, bestride horses to strike excursion.

Upon my shores, the Nile-born descendants ascend to an unmatched civilization long before their time.

I am the mighty River Nile; I am the tallest, the bluest, of my beauty, I married to the Queen.

I stretched my children to my remarkable height out of my depth and length, I formed them with charred soil at the bottom-most heart of my base.

I shower them with crystal clear water, scented by lilies dangling in the downstream current.

I allure butterfly to flutter while my swirling current tumbled northward as if to convey a message from Queen Victoria.

I am the Mighty Nile; I am the provenance of riches, the food and the water that sustains life is of me, I am the lord of this land.

I befriend potters and sculptors who carve portraits of wealth.

I inspire the painters to tint my beauty and the singers to sing my name of the blue sky.

Beyond my beaches, futile soil begets fertile with bountiful bread, barley, beans, and cereal, feeding the land.

In my happiest season, I snake through the glorious lawn of papyrus and reeds—the home to bats and beavers.

I nourish my descendants with lungfish, catfish, Nile perch, tilapia, and eel in the best of my season.

I am the Mighty Nile: I am the reservoir of the Sud—the swampland, the wetland, I give life to the pools and ponds within the plain far off the Sud.

I pour into the Sud, the vast swampland, a lonely abandoned land saturated where millions of my descendants were threatened to drown.

Within my Sud, their heritage is buried, and their forefathers mourn in sorrow as if to tame me.

I stretch my Sud to banish the birds that chirp in serenity to pay tribute to the daybreak.

Beyond the Sud, my descendants loiter on unforeseeable homelessness.

23 December, 2022