Thank You Tororot For This Year

As we draw close to the end of this year, I have so many things to be thankful for.

I thank Tororot for speaking to the hearts of three kindest souls who paid my fees at Kenya School of Law. God demonstrated once again that He is the provider of all that we desire. Up to now, I have not figured out how I came to the Law School. To these vessels that Divine Providence used to expand my horizons, I speak blessings to their lives. I don’t have gold to offer but a heart that will touch other people’s lives.

I thank my mother, brothers and sisters, relatives, friends who stood by me all this time. The path I took is a bit difficult to understand. It gets complicated when I mix it with some writing and poetry. One day you will fully realize the import of all these.

I thank Sherry Blue Sky, my Koko, who has been my “koko” always encouraging me in my poetry and fundamental issues in society. She has let me grow in wisdom. She has had a tremendous impact in my life. Never had I figured out that a blog could unite two souls from such diverse backgrounds and geographical locations. I owe it to her of learning the word “bioluminescence” and “Yippee” and “Yay” and “Wowzers” ( And “argh”, ha ha).

I thank all my fellow poets and readers of my poetry especially Madhumakhi, TheUnknowngnome, Andy and so many other warm souls who have graced my blog. There are others who have always read my poetry and I may not know them by name but your presence means a lot to me.

I thank all those inspirational sites I call “mountains” to the Echoes of the Hills for their continuous  prompts, encouragement, information and dedication to our Muses. Their toil can hardly be compared to anything. They carry the love of poetry and humanity in their hearts. Such a virtue needs praise!

I thank all my Facebook friends, My Fanpage community, my twitter followers and all those friends I interact with in the social media. Whoever thought the social media would have united us all? Thanks for being there for me. Thanks for keeping me going.

2011 has been a tremendous year.  I have grown in so many ways. And with the grace of The Supreme God, I look forward to 2012 with a renewed vision, a child-like curiosity in observing nature and professional growth. If 2011 has been a window through which I look into my future, then how excited am I to sprint into it, marvel at its beauty, bring change with whatever seed Tororot has planted inside my heart and yet remain humble in realizing that we are but mere mortals and not greater than any other in this world.

God, you have a reason why I have lived this far. I trust in your Divine Providence. Create within me the desire to be a servant, to be your slave. Let me not harbour any resentment over anything. Let no anger poison my heart or mind. If I do anything, however small, let it be out of love. Lord, of your abundant Grace, that overflows in the path my life has taken, fill my heart with gratitude and contentment. I have not been any better than a beggar or a stranger with no house. I have not done anything special to deserve such mercy. If anything, Lord, I have fallen short of your Grace. You have let blessings chase me as if they were a mighty waterfall. I have not used my strength and where I have used I did not succeed without your hand. Where I have drank from the cup of sorrow, you have stretched a chalice full of encouragements, love and contentment. There is a path to all these, Lord. That is all I know. You are busy pulling the strings here and there. You have pulled me from humble beginnings and placed me among the privileged. You have not looked at my limitations but you have always expanded me. Tororot, I am not worthy yet you have made me a story of Your greatness. The limitations of our human tongue cannot express the height of my gratitude to You.

At that note, Echoes of the Hills wishes everyone here Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2012. Keep well, dear reader. If Tororot sees it fit that we get into the year 2012, we will do this again next year. It only gets better. O, the excitement to all this!

Your Servant on Muse,

Lorot Son of the Hills

(16/12/2011)

Elegy to the Dying Planet

Not many years ago
You could drink water straight from a flowing stream

Not many years ago
You could walk barefoot and be at peace

Not many years ago
We could say when it would rain

Not anymore.

Lakes, rivers, streams
Chocked with industrial wastes

Broken glasses, plastic, clothes, chemicals
Strangling the last breaths of the soil

Erratic rains, unsteady rain patterns
False clouds, the Met Guys know it!

Dangerous fumes let loose
Intoxicating the skies

Nations rocking bombs, nuclear race
Senseless experiments for “superiority”
And so, Nations converge in some Conferences
Waving the magical wand—we have the solution
So they recite the symptoms and hide the prescription
It is a power game and well guarded interests prevail

Meanwhile, the Climate Change is some exciting talk
You see, to cool off some steam from hot politics
Nations send their own to commit to what they won’t fulfill
Tell me, where is the panic
When all we see is a planet teetering off to oblivion?
Surely, there would have been some urgency
If “national interests” were at stake, right?

So, hyacinths literally suffocate lakes,
Oil leak into water masses,
Buildings are erected on streams,
Forests are depleted,
Wildlife poached,
Condemned buildings are built
Only to collapse and bury the innocent
In Naivasha, flamingos drank pesticides
Emitted from flower farms
Now, Naivasha is an Elegy


Ours is a world gone insane
Multi-billion industries raking billions
And wrecking havoc;
What is the “market value” of pure air?
What is the price-tag of a marabou stork perched on a tree?
Which money will buy Paradise Lost?
What of the Maasai Mara?
Yet, money will exchange hands
For a “private developer” to build on a stream
Where was Environmental Impact Assessment?
Who honours Kyoto Protocol?

This is the Eulogy to a dying Planet
Never in our history are we in much danger
This planet is falling apart!

Lamentations

Link

Once a full land teeming with heroic sons and daughters,

Feet sprightly, hearts full of love, humility at its best

We saw them being born to the land

And as we severed their umbilical cords

We buried them in this land

To unite them with our ancestors

That pain we buried, the soil bore that pain

We never cared much about the raging floods,

The occasional ilat, the scorching sun,

The mad chepkrrir that blew round and round

Spinning at the centre of our being, irritating

Collecting dust and blinding our eyes with grit

Yes, even that we cared less

Once or twice, in the baraza

In search of truth, anger could take over

And in that moment of blind fury

Elbow could brush against elbow

For we never hit another at the stomach

For if they died, we would pay lapai

But we always looked up to the sun

Whoever lacked millet, we gave

Whoever lacked milk, we gave

The barren couples, we despised not

Our children slept in their homes

For love defined us, Tororot gave children

Our brave sons were fed with k’soyo

Made to drink fresh blood and milk

Walk bare-chested in the rain

As if that cold was some initiation

To the warm company of our departed warriors

Thus, there was no thorn-tree, no forest,

No darkness, no danger

Our brave sons could not bear

And if some succumbed to death

We left them in the bush

Whispered silent prayers

And moved on—not all live through this life

Our daughters would grow at the laps of their grandmothers

Taught the secrets of making their men happy

They would grow with virtues

To be taught that the first shaft of dawn

Shouldn’t find her tucked on-top of a mud-bed

That she would jump from the bed, bolt to the river

Be back to milk the cows and be done with breakfast

Before the sun rays touch upon the brows of her woken husband

She would oil herself, sew her beads, thatch her hut

Scold a girl not seated properly, gather firewood—

All these in one span of a day and another and another

When we quarreled, we used our mouths

Not hands

And as we spoke, we traded no insult

We abused no one, we despised no one

Even a whisper of insult to a madman

Was met with heavy reproach

For madmen were angels Tororot sent to us

To test the granary of our tolerance

Thus we lived, the sons and daughters of the hills,

If a day passed with anger in our hearts

We were worried

For bitterness was a poison

That even milk from our cows wouldn’t neutralise

We had learnt to speak in the ways of our people

To bring us together, to speak of our dark skins

To unite us in the tongue our ancestors taught us

We knew that the Sun was a jealous woman

As she rises from kong’asis, she demands attention

So we always bolted from sleep, chased after our cattle

Walked miles and miles before she rose

We knew how to rise to our fields

To plant sorghum and millet

Have time for the baraza, have time to harvest honey,

Have time to make babies, have time to speak to our children

Thus, when a day passed, and as cows came home

We could rest knowing we did our part

Laziness was not part of us

We kept our promises, too,

When we married and never had cows

We said, “Kinsmen, please wait till the next rains

When these calves will feed on green grass and fatten

But first give us our wife”

And with our words, we married

For we were honourable men

Our words were like the words of a mondö

We learnt to speak our frustrations

If a Chief failed to include our names in the Relief List

We told him so, but we never abused him

For Tororot provides leaders

We gave him the opportunity to tell us

For in the ways of our people

You don’t tie an adulterer to a köndölo tree

Without first inquiring from them

For we also believed in justice

We could not condemn a man unheard

These have been our ways as sons and daughters of the hills

These have defined us

But what have we seen?

Ashes of cindered dreams

We failed looking up to the sun

Thus our sights have been on trees

Snapping at the slightest winds!

We ceased being word merchants

Speaking on the wealth of our idioms and proverbs

Instead, our mouths have been filled

With words more obnoxious than the fart of a honey badger!

Our words have become the distant cricket sounds

Announcing of death;

Like the empty snuff bottle

They hang on the chests of old men

Without use, not even the incessant tapping helps;

In the past, we made promises and kept them

But now we tell them and swear by our ancestors

Yet fail to keep them—tell me, the whispers were carried by the winds

The caves of the hills echoed them, will you lie to nature?

We ceased being honourable men

Our days are filled with irrelevancies

Men chasing money, ideals flushed down the drain,

Mannequins of still ideas, collective hopes of a generation

Hurled to the winds of penury, convictions without conscience,

Positions without responsibility, visions without convictions

Yet, you could expect, in the least,

That there could be some semblance of reason

To order this confusion into clarity

But none!

The sun still shines

It still rains

And every day,

You hear the hills sigh

The uneasy tension of the trees

Snap

But it is business as usual

Yes, it is business as usual.