Where is Dedan’s Body?

"It is better to die on our feet than to live on our knees"

                                            --Dedan Kimathi

                                     [Image from thenewblackmagazine.com]

The spirit of the late Marshall Dedan Kimathi

Attacks me in my sleep

Dedan would sit with me in the fireplace

And tell me: 

“Child of Kenya, my spirit has no homestead

When I lived in a body I had no homestead

For my land had been taken away

And now in spirit I hover without perching”

“And these chains, my child, tie me up

Fellow spirits share with my sorrow”

I only shake my head, look at him most forlon

He laughs, grins, adds,

“Strange, though, my child, that the land I fought hard for

Now belongs to the sons of chiefs and bodyguards

While the rest, the sons of mau mau, live by the roadsides”

“Go tell them,” he tells me, “go tell them to bury me in the

way of our people.”

“And lastly, remind them that I need no statues.
They should live by what I died for.

Whitewashed graves don’t cleanse land-grabbers!”

C) Lorot Salem 2011