In one of my crystal clear memories, I am eight years old in my hometown, Naivasha. On this particular day, I am saying a prayer on behalf of my mother’s people. My eyes are a cacophony of crystalline tears. As I pray I cry to be Icarus, to fly away from this cesspit of transgressions. This is because the guttural of a former friend has now been remodelled into a satisfying symphony. His blood is now the belly wash for libations poured in frugality
.
In this hometown, my uncles have feigned an onset dementia. They have made caste difference, the mark of a malignance. One is taken to the backyard shrubberies , to be uprooted with exasperation. To be done away with wrath.
My neighbor’s cat later licks his gore in a grieving hunger. If I dare feed it, I become one with traitorous sentiments, I become a nemesis to the clan. I am eight years old and I watch helplessly as my country becomes refuge to political hate. My kinsmen master the art of polarization.
Now at 24 years old, I read Japanese author Haruki Murakami’s 2002 novel, Kafka On The Shore and he writes on how memories might warm you up from the inside, and at the same time also tear you apart. I decide to write a poem about this one memory that tears me apart. I title the poem, 2008.
2008
( 19 people burned in their homes or hacked to death in the popular tourist town of Naivasha. – The Guardian, Monday 28, 2008 )
I
& in this place,
to narrate on God, is to talk of an anathema
upon a people whose sole title
is ascribed by bards whose names are lost in history.
Where I once dwelt,
humans were as nondescript as they come,
remained lowly men -
because who were we to question the wisdom of God
as men born & raised in ignorance?
You truly can’t be the tick in God’s hair
& seek his reprieve in the ‘age of darkness’.
ii
They say a flower can’t bloom eternally,
-so my country wilts to the sound of a patriotic song;
Jam-bo Jam-bo bwa-na Ha-ba-ri ga-ni?
Mzu-ri sa-na.
& a body reincarnates to be
a comfort blanket for grief,
as waltz music in a radio gives way-
because a boy’s reflexes are
tormented by the plight of his tribesmen;
all because his countrymen call for
the burrowing of genealogies in secrecy.
