My Country Solomon #Poetry

Leonard Fong Roka

The PNG constitution tells Bougainvilleans they are not Solomon Islanders. 24/7, a Bougainvillean is told to accept himself a citizen of PNG; he is told not to be racist or undemocratic, the very acts that would unfold the reality of PNG indoctrination of Bougainvilleans.

But stand a Bougainvillean and a PNG man together and ask ‘Does their skin color look the same?’ Do New Guineans dance the kovi and sing the siriroi so common across Bougainville and the Solomons? Stand on the Lontis Point of Buka Island and look out to the sea; do you see any PNG islands? Stand at Deuro Ridge and look beyond the plains of Olava, what do you see? A mat of a hundred islands of the Choiseul Province and Western Province kissing with the south Bougainville coast!

This is the real Bougainville!

 

One day sitting lowly on Deuro road

I watched the calm sea before me

Smeared by a hundred dots of pure green

Those pure green islands where my progenitors

Departed from to conquer my Bougainville from the gods

Those islands were my ancestors’ roots and inspiration for ages

To cut this cruel sea before me to colonize my Bougainville

But now colonization prevents me to love you dearly

I know my skin color and songs but the aliens say

My eyes and grandpa had tricked me long

Long by feeding me charcoal to hide

My true colors and songs

But why these islands

Kissing my Bougainville always?