Poetry by Adut Loi Akok

My mother’s favorite singer sang
of Abyei
Mother said, when you write poems son,
Write one to the last standing Abyei of hollows.
And by the time I walked across the river
The last Abyei to survive the bullet was still alive.
She was the last comrade standing among other victims of the Gorilla movement.

Surviving the battle of the Anya Nya I
Becoming the hero of the remains of 1998

And she said in whispers:
Tell my story to the owners of nature
Sing my songs to the new bird of paradise

The river wash away the dead in my witness
The soul find the truth of injustice in my witness
Every day we crossed, it’s with the price of oil and blood, and they form from within my
hollows,
And we never pay to the words of song birds
who knew about the music of the homeless.

Even the thunder of death never cut my roots
when I took the blame for all the pain in Junub
of curses

I sing with the wind of both languages
for my shade that keep Garang at rest.
Sing for the graves I grieve for.
Sing for the children to be born in misfortune
Inside my hollows,
For who would nurture them among all the trees of Khartoum to green like his own leaves?
Who’d nurture them among all the trees of Juba
to green like his own leaves?!

And I said:
It’s the testament of why God is a root

Of Abyei,
The mother of all things we name light.
Gracious beyond gods of all beautiful miracles.

Bold beyond the somber days of Torit Mutiny
Where every green leaves dies in honour of its
Country and she stood stall.

By the time I walk across the river
Talking to the trees in like ghosts of my ancestors
Their shadows still hold the spirit of comradeship
when the sun is a bullet of unknown gunmen
On nameless madmen of post-war
the country never bears to honour,
In their own South Sudan of sacrifices.

I will return to name every sapling
Abyei as they grow to become trees
Of shade.

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Bio
Adut Loi Akok is a South Sudanese contemporary award-winning poet and an author of the Radiate Rwanda award-winning poetry book “ If Only the City Cries” for the Outstanding African Writer 2025, and UNFPA Shebab-Le-Shebab National second Poetry prize winner South Sudan-2022. His debut chapbook was titled “ The Beauty within Us”. His work has featured in the “ Best New African Poets Anthology 2022” and “ World Poetry Yearbook 2025”, and also in several magazines including Brittle Paper, Afritondo, The Rendition Magazine, Kalahari Review, Konch Magazine, Mount Kenya Times, Plot Creatives Magazine and Scribe Ink Publishers. He has been recognized by UNHCR Africa for his poem “ What is life without light” and the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program at the University of Rwanda for his literary talent.