Awadifo Olga Kili Poetry |Prominent Ugandan poet

BIO
Awadifo Olga Kili is a renowned Ugandan poet, lawyer, and advocate for human rights, peacekeeping, and reconciliation. She has authored several books, including "Victorious Tales," "Echoes of Wails," and "Stains on a Cowrie Shell." Kili's work extends beyond literature, as she actively engages in promoting human rights and peacekeeping efforts. Her dedication to these causes has earned her recognition, including being named one of Uganda's most influential women by New Vision, a leading Ugandan newspaper.
Kili has written numerous poems that have received wide publication in journals and anthologies internationally. Some of her poems have been translated into Spanish, Hebrew, French, and Italian, showcasing her global reach and impact.

 Awadifo Olga Kili

ABOUT THE POEMS.

These poems by Kili speak like river and wind. They tell how the heart breaks when mother is gone, and how the feet walk even when the soul is heavy. They carry grief like a walking stick, and faith like fire in the night. They speak of sorrow, and of remembering, and of meeting again where tears cannot follow. They are strong and soft, like the land and sky together.

I WALKED WITH GRIEF ON MY BACK

I walked with grief on my back
Like a sack of wet millet,
Heavy, unbalanced,
Cutting my shoulders
Until my bones sang pain.
 
People said,
“Time will heal you.”
I laughed.
Time is a river that only flows,
It does not stop to bury the dead.
 
I called my mother’s name
Into the evening wind,
And the wind answered me with silence.
I called again.
Only the dogs lifted their heads.
 
My house became a cave.
Morning entered shyly,
Ashamed to see my tears.
Night sat beside me
And asked no questions.
 
But I remembered the old hymn
My mother hummed while sweeping the compound,
The one that speaks of a Man
Whose hands were wounded for love,
Whose feet walked pain before me.
 
They say when I see Him,
I will not ask His name.
I will know Him
By what suffering has written on His body.
 
So I lifted my eyes,
Not because my heart was strong,
But because grief had broken me open.
 
And through the crack in my soul
Light entered.
 
Not loud light.
Not the light of miracles shouted in markets.
But quiet light,
Like dawn touching a grave.
 
I did not forget my mother.
No.
Love does not forget.
 
But I learned this:
She did not disappear—
She crossed a river I have not yet crossed.
 
And the Man with wounded hands
Stood on the farther bank,
Calling her by name.
 
I wiped my face.
I stood up.
My back was still heavy,
But now I was not walking alone.
 

WHEN THE CROSS STOOD IN MY COMPOUND

 
Grief entered my home
And sat on my mother’s stool.
It refused to greet me.
 
It ate my food
And left bitterness in the pot.
 
I wanted to fight it.
I wanted to shout Scripture at it
Like stones.
 
But the Cross stood quietly in my compound,
Not shouting,
Not threatening,
Just standing.
 
It told me:
“Suffering is not a stranger here.”
 
The Man on it
Did not hurry down to prove His power.
He stayed.
He endured.
He trusted the Father
With His last breath.
 
I understood then:
Faith is not escape.
Faith is staying
When the heart wants to run.
 
I sat under that Cross
With my torn clothes of sorrow.
I told it everything—
How my mother’s voice still lived in my ears,
How her absence shouted louder than drums.
 
The Cross did not argue with me.
It bled with me.
 
And in that bleeding silence,
I remembered the promise sung in the hymn:
That seeing Him would be knowing Him,
That love leaves marks deeper than death.
 
If death could not erase Him,
Why should it erase her?
 
I rose slowly.
Grief still followed me,
But it no longer led.
 
The Cross walked ahead,
Casting a shadow shaped like hope.
 
 I SHALL KNOW HIM, AND I SHALL LIVE
 
They say heaven is far.
I say it is near,
Only hidden by tears.
 
When my mother closed her eyes,
I thought the world had ended.
But the world did not end.
It paused.
 
In that pause,
I heard a song—
Not with my ears,
But with my broken spirit.
 
A song that says recognition comes through love,
That wounds speak louder than names,
That reunion is certain.
 
One day,
When my feet are tired of this earth,
When grief has finished its lessons,
I will cross too.
 
I will see a Man
Whose hands carry history,
Whose scars preach mercy.
 
I will not ask,
“Are You the One?”
My soul will answer before my mouth.
 
And behind Him—
Oh, mystery of grace—
I believe I will see her,
Whole, laughing, unafraid.
 
Until that day,
I live.
 
I live carrying sorrow
Like a sacred gourd,
Not to poison me,
But to remind me
That love was here.
 
Grief did not defeat me.
It baptized me.
 
And faith—
Faith taught me how to walk again.

 
GRIEF TAUGHT ME HOW TO PRAY

Before grief,
My prayers were neat.
Folded like Sunday clothes.
 
Then death entered my house
Without knocking.
 
I began to pray without grammar,
Without patience,
Without respect.
 
I accused heaven.
I questioned God like a stubborn child.
 
And heaven did not strike me.
 
The Man with wounded hands
Sat beside me on the floor.
 
He had prayed like this before—
In a garden,
Sweating blood.
 
So I poured out my grief
Like water on dry ground.
 
And slowly,
Peace entered.
Not the peace of answers,
But the peace of presence.
 

THE DAY I STOPPED ASKING FOR HER BACK

I used to pray
for her return—
not politely,
but with fists of faith,
with nights that shook the ceiling.
 
I begged God
to reverse time,
to rewind the clock
to the last laugh,
the last cup of tea,
the last “come here, my child.”
 
I argued with Heaven.
I listed my goodness.
I reminded God of His mercy,
as though mercy had forgotten me.
 
Every prayer sounded the same:
Give her back.
Even if she were quiet.
Even if she were weak.
Even if she were changed.
 
I just wanted her breathing
in the same world as me.
 
But one morning—
not loud,
not dramatic—
a different prayer rose
from a tired place in my chest:
 
“Carry her well.”
 
It surprised me.
It did not beg.
It did not bargain.
It rested.
 
I saw her then—
not on hospital beds,
not wrapped in pain,
but walking
without counting her steps,
without fear of tomorrow.
 
I imagined her laughing freely,
unburdened by worry,
unafraid of nights.
 
I imagined her
held,
not by machines,
not by my shaking hands,
but by God Himself.
 
And slowly,
with tears that felt like surrender,
I released her name
into God’s hands.
 
My heart broke again—
the kind of breaking
that does not make noise,
the kind that humbles the soul.
 
But this time,
it did not shatter.
 
It opened.
 
And through that opening,
grief learned trust,
love learned release,
and faith learned
how to breathe without her.

I AM STILL HERE, AND I BELIEVE

Some days,
I wake strong,
My feet touching the ground
As if the earth remembers me kindly.
 
Other days,
I wake empty,
Like a house after mourning,
Where even the walls are tired of listening.
 
Faith does not erase this.
It does not rush my tears away
Or command my heart to be brave.
Faith teaches me to breathe
When breathing feels like work,
To count the moments
Until the chest loosens
And life enters again.
 
I have learned
That belief is not noise.
It is not shouting hallelujah
When the night is loud.
It is whispering,
“I am still here,”
And meaning it.
 
I believe in a risen Savior
Who did not rise untouched.
He kept His scars.
He carried them into glory
As holy evidence
That pain is not forgotten,
That suffering is not erased,
That love remembers everything.
 
When I touch my grief,
I think of His wounds—
How resurrection did not remove them,
But redeemed them.
And I understand:
What hurts me now
Will one day speak light.
 
I believe in reunion.
Not as a story to soften loss,
But as a promise sealed in blood and breath.
I believe in a morning
Where names are called
And answered,
Where separation collapses
Like a bad dream.
 
I believe I will see her again—
Not tired,
Not fading,
Not slipping through my fingers.
I believe she will stand whole,
And I will know her instantly,
The way the heart knows home.
 
Until then,
I walk.
Sometimes steady,
Sometimes stumbling.
 
I fall—
Into memory,
Into silence,
Into the ache that has no language.
 
And I rise—
Not because I am strong,
But because grace is patient.
Because God waits for me
At the pace of my pain.
 
I am still here.
I still believe.
And for now,
That is enough.
 

I LEARNED TO LIVE WITH THE EMPTY CHAIR

There is a chair in my house
that knows her shape.
 
It remembers
the way she rested her back,
the way her hands folded
when the day was long.
 
At first,
I avoided it—
as if grief lived there permanently,
as if sitting near it
would summon pain by name.
 
I walked around it.
I kept my eyes busy elsewhere.
I pretended furniture
could not grieve.
 
But the chair waited.
Faithful.
Unmoved.
 
One evening,
when the house was quiet
and memories spoke louder than voices,
I sat beside it.
 
Not on it.
Beside it.
 
My body trembled.
My heart rehearsed loss again.
 
And heaven leaned close.
 
Not with answers.
Not with explanations.
But with presence.
 
The chair did not accuse me.
It did not demand tears.
It simply stood there—
holding absence honestly.
 
I realized then:
this chair was not empty.
 
It was full of love
that had nowhere to go,
full of conversations paused,
full of prayers once whispered
into evening air.
 
The chair remained—
not a curse,
not a wound,
but a witness.
 
A witness that love stayed.
That memory endured.
That grief, too,
is a form of devotion.
 

WHEN FAITH WALKED SLOWLY

Faith used to run ahead of me—
quick with verses,
eager with answers,
confident about tomorrow.
 
It sprinted toward hope
while I followed,
trying to keep up.
 
But grief changed the road.
 
Now faith walks slowly,
matching my steps,
pausing when I pause,
breathing when I cannot.
 
It does not rush me anymore.
It does not shout promises
from far away.
 
It stays close.
 
Some days,
faith is nothing more
than standing up.
 
Some days,
it is getting dressed
without expectation.
 
Some days,
it is whispering “God”
without adding anything else.
 
Belief now is quieter.
Heavier.
More honest.
 
Belief is choosing to walk
even when the end is hidden,
even when the path curves into silence,
even when joy feels like a stranger.
 
Faith no longer demands certainty.
It asks only movement.
 
One step.
Then another.
 
And sometimes,
faith carries me
without calling it strength.
 
I walk slowly now—
but I am still walking.
 
And God,
patient as sorrow,
keeps pace beside me.
 

THE CROSS REMEMBERS MY MOTHER

The Cross remembers everyone
Who trusted it—
Not by name carved in stone,
But by wounds leaned upon,
By tears pressed into its wood.
 
It remembers my mother.
 
It remembers how she believed
Without shouting,
How she folded faith into daily bread,
How she prayed while sweeping,
While waiting,
While hurting.
 
The Cross remembers the weight
She placed there quietly—
The tired body,
The questions she never asked aloud,
The fear she wrapped in Psalms.
 
Love called to love.
Not with thunder,
But with a familiar voice
She had followed all her life.
 
Death delayed the meeting—
It did not cancel it.
 
Death stood at the door and knocked,
But the Cross had already marked her
As belonging elsewhere.
 
The nails did not frighten her;
She knew what they meant.
She knew suffering was not the end
But a passage,
A narrow bridge.
 
The Cross remembers how she waited,
How she rested when strength failed,
How she entrusted her breath
To the One who gave it first.
 
Now heaven holds what earth released.
The Cross stands between us—
Not as a barrier,
But as a promise.
 
One day,
I will walk where she walked,
Touch what she touched,
And the Cross will recognize me too
Because I come bearing her faith
In my hands.

 
 I AM NOT THE SAME, AND THAT IS HOLY

I am not the same.
 
Grief changed me—
Not into something broken,
But into something stripped of noise.
 
I speak softly now
Because I have heard eternity whisper.
I no longer argue with pain;
I listen.
 
I love deeper
Because I know love can be taken
And yet remain undefeated.
 
I have learned that faith
Does not always shout victory;
Sometimes it sits beside loss
And refuses to leave.
 
I have already seen Him
In endurance—
In the mornings I rose unwillingly,
In the nights I cried without words,
In the strength that was not mine
But arrived anyway.
 
I met Him in patience,
In the long waiting,
In the ache that did not explain itself.
 
Grief baptized me in truth.
It taught me what matters.
It burned away what was light
And kept what was eternal.
 
I walk slower now.
I pray differently.
I trust without demanding proof.
 
When I cross—
When my own breath loosens from me—
I will know Him.
 
Not because I memorized Him,
But because I walked with Him
Through the valley.
 
And I will know her—
Not by sorrow,
But by joy made whole again.
 
She will not be distant.
She will not be lost.
She will be known
As love knows love.
 
I am not the same,
And that is holy.