“If I had hated,” you said, “I would have become an assassin.

But no, my revenge is love.” Goodness does not just endure, its passion

Is to fight evil, with humane weapons. You did this Marguerite,

In Burundi in the face of genocide where a squad of elite

Killers forced you to witness them killing seventy humans

Including a man you loved, so that, they declared, they might ruin

Your hope, but failed because in that place you made Maison

Shalom where ethnic designations were banned and the pleasant

Skills of children, women, and men nourished until a small

Refuge grew to include a hospital, restaurant, gym and theatre, all

Stolen by your own government when you had to flee its

Malevolence in 2015, since when you have seen the

Twa, the indigenous pygmy people of the African Lakes,

As the symbolic focus of your work for justice. Fake

Saints exist but millions of poor people declare you

Authentic.Amen. But to understand the care you

Have given, I had to read the story of the Rwandan

Genocide: the political designers of hate; the brutal

Propaganda; the interahamwe militia, the radio

Mix of music and murder. Just so. But your neighbour

Coming for you with a machete, your pastor watching

You raped five times a day, their way of snatching

Babies from your arms to slice them open, playing

Football with your husband’s head, happily flaying

The skin from captive soldiers -A ruthlessness only

Of homo sapiens, not seen elsewhere on the globe

Maybe not in the universe, justifying the terrible Christians

Who wrote of total corruption and the stink of Satan. Missions

Of love look vain in face of this evil, the bloodstains refuse

To wash out. Amor non vincit omnia. The sticky stuff chooses

To stay on Jesus’ hands and feet and side. Neither his love

Nor yours Marguerite redeems what was done here nor those

Who did it. Only love can foster life, it’s true, you are our teacher,

But does any sensible person want to foster the life of this creature?