Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Was it the dog or god?” by Jedidiah Mugarura.

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Was it the dog or god?

By Jedidiah Mugarura

It was the dog. If the boy seated at the verandah

teaches his mother how to oil her hair with shea butter

without flaking her scalp in the rain. There, that too is history.

There was no father coming back home from a war

teaching his mother how to oil her hair with shea butter

because all hamerkops wove nests all around the Congo

where all the fathers came back home from the war

& no planes with pilots could fly to the center of Africa.

All hamerkops wove nests all around the Congo.

The boy walked with his dog to learn what kind of nests birds wove

& which planes had pilots that flew over the center of Africa.

There would be no more humbling of self for prayers to the god.

The boy would walk with his dog and learn what kind of nests birds wove

with his only amen sounded to the sniff of the dog’s muzzle.

The boy no longer humbled himself for prayers to the god.

So he heard the five ten notes of all the hamerkops’ calls;

his amens sounded after the sniff of the dog’s muzzle,

without flaking her scalp in the rain. That is history.

The boy sang the five ten notes of all the hamerkops’ calls.

It was the dog. The boy is seated at the verandah.

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Copyright © Jedidiah Mugarura

Jedidiah Mugarura is a storyteller descended from the people of Nkore. Their storytelling seeks to find and reimagine the missing vowels to the songs we once sang before colonial violence, to project a future of agency and possibility for those still negotiating their bodies in empire. Their play, “Tomorrow Never Came,” will be staged in New York in June 2025.

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