Three Triolets: Celebrating Mashujaa Day

Exit Limericks. Enter Triolets!

This poetry form (pronounced tree-o-lay), a French verse form, has its features as:

8         a)   8 lines

T          b)  2 rhymes

5         c)   5 of the 8 lines are repeated or are refrain lines

           d)   First line repeats at the 4^th and 7^th lines

            e)  Second line repeats at the 8^th line

It is due to the repetition of the first line at the 4^th and 7^th line that the triolet gets its name.

The triolet’s rhyme scheme is ABaAabAB.

An example:

How Great My Grief   

By Thomas Hardy

How great my grief, my joys how few,

Since first it was my fate to know thee!

- Have the slow years not brought to view

How great my grief, my joys how few,

Nor memory shaped old times anew,

    Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee

How great my grief, my joys how few,

    Since first it was my fate to know thee?

That is enough.

In celebrating MASHUJAA DAY (A Kenyan National Holiday to celebrate her heroes) to be held tomorrow, the 20^th of October 2011, dear reader please accept this amateurish poems.

Quotes to set you off:

"Our children may learn about the heroes of the past. Our task is to make ourselves the architects of the future."

-Jomo Kenyatta, first president of Kenya, from an address given on Kenyatta Day, as quoted in Anita King's Quotations in Black, Greenwood Press 1981.

"There is something about safari life that makes you forget all your sorrows and feel as if you had drunk half a bottle of champagne - bubbling over with heartfelt gratitude for being alive. One only feels really free when one can go in whatever direction one pleases over the plains, to get to the river at sundown and pitch one's camp, with the knowledge that one can fall asleep beneath other trees, with another view before one, the next night."

- Karen Blixen

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Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu

Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu, we sing in the anthem,

Ilete Baraka kwetu, we call upon blessings

To rent the air of Kenya’s majesty

Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu, we sing in the anthem,

Venerating our Heroes for their homogeneity

Harambee! Harambee! We chant without blemish

Eee Mungu Nguvu Yetu, we sing in the anthem

Ilete Baraka kwetu, we call upon blessings

Notes:

Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu- Words extracted from the National Anthem of Kenya which translate to “O God of All Creation”.

Ilete Baraka Kwetu- Words from the National Anthem. Bless this Our Land and Nation.

Harambee- A historical word in Kenya used to call upon people to come together for a common cause. It was commonly used by the former presidents of Kenya.

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Dear Forgotten (S)hero Lurking in the Shadows

Dear forgotten (s)hero lurking in the shadows

I got your crumbled letter in a dustbin

Rotting away in waste of greed

Dear forgotten (s)hero lurking in the shadows

Now a forbidden fragrance amid filth

What is an artificial statue worth in Patrio-meter?

Dear forgotten (s)hero lurking in the shadows

Echoes of the hills will make your names sanguine

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Of the Mara, the Maasai and Mombasa

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When God created Kenya, He spoke thus:

“Let us create Mara, the Maasai and Mombasa”

And, having created them, He said it was good

When God created Kenya, He spoke thus:

“Now let us populate her with people most good”

Then God dotted it with wonderful vegetation and landscapes

When God created Kenya, He spoke thus:

“I envy Mara, the Maasai and Mombasa”.

Echoes of the Hills wishes all Kenyans a Happy Mashujaa Day. Let all (S)heroes celebrated and uncelebrated be in our thoughts. More importantly, let us strive to be (s)heroes in the small things in life because it is the humility in the small and obvious that we are magnified to the big and not-so-obvious.