Alphabet of Kenya

A—A is the Anthem of Kenya, Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu Ilete Baraka Kwetu

B—B is the Blood we shed for Uhuru, the legacy our forefathers bequeathed us

C—C is the Chama we formed, Kavirondo, KAU

D—D is Dedan Kimanthi, our shackled shujaa whose body we can’t trace

E—E is England, our colonizers, the mabeberu

F—F is the Flag, the Kenyan flag fluttering in the free Kenyan wind

G—G is God to whom we all look up to for sustenance

H—H is Harambee, that word that calls us to pull together

I—I is indigenous that was hated, despised

J—J is Jomo, Jomo Kenyatta, the Father of our Nation

K—K is the Kipande that we carried on our necks

L—L is the Land we fought for, the reason why we died

M—M is Mekatilili, the woman who fought for Uhuru

N—N is Nairobi, the Metropolis, Our City

O—O is the Opposition, the ones who fought for the Second and Third Liberations

P—P is Press—Muigwithania, Sauti ya Mwafrika, Habari za Dunia, Musmengerere—that spoke for us

Q—Q is Queen, Her Majesty The Queen, to whom the Union Jack was hoisted

R—R is the Railway, the Kenya-Uganda Railway that we toiled building

S—S is Swahili, the language that unites us, Hakuna matata, Jambo

T—T is Trade Union, the Trade Unions that risked arm and limb for us

U—U is Ugatuzi, the devolution of power, the county governments

V—V is Violence, the Post Election Violence 07/08 that almost blew us out into oblivion

W—W is Wananchi, of all shades and diversity, the ones who remind us of humankind

X—X is the Cross, religious or metaphorical that we carry as a Nation

Y—Y is the Youth, the Youth of Kenya, to whom the future lies spread

Z—Z is Zilizopendwa, the oldies of the 70s and 80s that played on our Santuri

Explanation:

Eee Mungu Nguvu Yetu Ilete Baraka kwetu- O God of All Creation, bless this land and our Nation.

Uhuru- Independence.

Chama- Political party.

Kavirondo- One of the earliest political Movements in Kenya before independence; same with KAU.

Shujaa- Hero.

Beberu- Coloniser.

Harambee- Let us pull together.

Kipande- Identification document that Kenyans carried on their chests before independence; It was required as they moved from one place to another.

Wananchi- Citizens; plural for Mwananchi

Hakuna matata- A phrase loved by tourists coming to Kenya literally meaning ‘there is no trouble’.

Jambo- Greetings in Kiswahili.

Zilizopendwa- Music of the 70s and 80s that the old folks love to listen to. They had a lot in social commentary.

This World Has Changed Much

Link

I don’t want to talk about religion

You have what you believe in

Whether you be a Catholic, Protestant,

Muslim, Buddhist, Theosophist

Agnostic

Anything

I don’t want to question anyone’s belief system

That is beyond me

I leave that to Metaphysicists and thinkers

You can read their essays, probe their wisdom

That is not my function

But it troubles me

If only we lived by what our religions taught

If only we strove to be Religion’s Teachings

The Bible,The Quran, The Upanishads,

The Gitas, The Key to Theosophy—name them—

All these, even Tolstoy’s Gospel in Brief,

Materially urge upon us to replicate goodness

So, why do we kill?

Throughout history, Nations kill in the name of God,

“To protect their sovereignty”, they claim

And as soldiers are dispatched

Religious leaders pray for them

“God of Love,” they pray,

“Protect our soldiers. Let them not fall in

 the harm’s way.”

It is as if when the bellies of their ‘enemies’

Blow into shreds, those are toy bellies

That haven’t fallen in ‘harm’s way’

We have glorified war

Little toy games orient our minds to bloodpath

We watch the scariest horror movies

Where blood, like geyser, spurt from decapitated heads

And as such, we grow numb, we become dumb

Tell me which war was worth human life?

Tell me whether men create lives, show me a cause for war

Then when we annihilated ourselves

And called it ‘upholding security’

Or ‘protecting strategic interests’

All that was wanted was your voice,

YOUR VOICE,

To say, “WE ARE GOING AGAINST RELIGION”

“TO KILL IS THE GRAVEST ABERRATION, SIN!”

But you kept quiet.

It was some contradiction, wasn’t it?

When you stood at the pulpit or in mosque

Or whatever hallowed grounds you stood

Preaching about Love even for your enemies

And somehow became decidedly mum

On the cannons decimating human population

Which fear overwhelmed you?

I thought you could speak Truth

Because you kept quiet,

Millions of lives are getting lost

Because you still keep quiet,

No one speaks against the war,

Because you keep quiet,

Commands are given to kill

Murder is rewarded

The nonsense goes on and on

But imagine if YOU stood your ground

And said, “My belief teaches me of Love,

My conscience WILL NOT allow me

To allow the KILLING and BLOODBATH!”

Imagine if you met the Presidents and Kings

And told them, “God has sent me to you,

To tell you that your hands are dipped in human blood

And that He has commanded that you STOP IT!”

May be by doing that, war will end.

May be, by doing that, war would have ended.

But you chose to be silent.

Two Sets of Prayers to the Same God

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The oppressor prays:

“Our Father Who Art In Heaven,

Imbue in me strength and will

As strong as the Jail Cells

To be armoured against

The little vermins nibbling

At my feet;

Give me strength, I beseech thee,

To thunder edicts to be followed

As sheep to the slaughterhouse;

Which rights have they, the Ingrates,

As to doubt the timber of my voice?

Don’t they know after you, I follow?

All I want is more fire in my bones

A certain deathliness to my voice

Let me be the source of terror”

In the same prayer corner,

The Oppressed whispers:

“The Silent One, The Great One,

Though I be at the shadow of the valley of death

To be crushed at the suffocating boots

Of my Earthly Master

Let my earthly whines be unto you

I don’t need explosives

All the pain within me, if I let them,

Can explode me

My mind is like an LPG tanker

A little scratch can detonate my brains

My heart is soiled with injustice—

A dark alley of blind rage against men

I have no prayer skills of a chaplain

So I will tell you of how depraved I am

Like an antelope with an arrow on its back

I have run here, weary and tired and dying

I have no grace to beat my chest

For I have no chest

All I have is a slab of embalmed passions

Nothing excites me anymore

I will not talk of freedom, though you grant it,

I will not pray for power, though you grant it,

I will not pray for revenge, though my heart seethes,

Your depraved servant (O, how ill-equipped am I to request)

Yearns for GRACE to live through

All your servant yearns for is GRACE

The injustices of this world are beyond me

Because I have no mind, resources or skill

To think of the misery I have been subjected to”

Two different prayers to the same God

And God’s mediator, exercising better judgement,

Invites the Oppressor to the altar

“To address the brethren”, he says

The Oppressor has the wits and fluency

Often quoting the Bible,

The Eternal Message of Love

Even for his brethren, the Oppressed,

O, how prayers unite petitions

A common cause to the God of Love.

Live Each Moment As If It Was The Last

Ninety years of life, ninety years of sigh

Apprehension, depression,

Life rushed for that perpetual bliss

Always futuristic

As if the magic of Now was a mirage!

Ah, what waste! What loss!

All you would have needed were seconds

Nine seconds in every nine seconds

To watch Akorinos dancing bare feet

See them sweating, beating drums

Or watch the earnest face of a child

At Aga Khan Walk learning skating

Or keep your eyes open to life’s humours

When sorrow befalls you

Let that moment occupy your heart

Cry, feel that pain, experience it

If you are keen enough

Out of sorrows and man’s darkest hours

Were man’s dawn of morning birthed

I watched somewhere

You trick your heart when sad

You tell it, “All is well”

You repeat it

Thinking back, I say those words

They are my mantra

The taste of life gets bland

Soon when we dream of a magical garden

When at our doorstep is a rose;

We dream of amassing esoteric knowledge

Yet we never ask why we can’t sambaza phone battery power;

We dream of houses and cars

Yet our hearts are decrepit shacks

Lacking in the essence of Truth;

We postpone our lives till everything is ‘perfect’

Yet fail to realize the imperfections of today

Make life worth living

So, let the Wheel of Time spin,

I will catch all its pleasures and sadness

I will live each moment as if it were my last

I will not rush anything, I will not be afraid of living

I have realized the magic of Now.

Let Us Piggyback Today

Let us

Piggyback

Today

Let us throw

caution to the wind—

And be children.

Link

Pact With the Sun

New Year, 1^st.1.2012, greeted my face

On the plains of Kacheliba

Surrounded by Kacheliba Hill

Shabaha Hill, Kadam Hill

As if I was in a kraal

Protected from the uncertainties

Beyond the walls of my Reality

There is something about Sunrise

The death of night, the birth of day

The ball of energy rising above the hills

Cold gives way to warmth, darkness to light

The morning sun is like millet porridge

You sip in bits—you can’t have enough of it!

So, with such a bright new year

Land illuminated with radiance and energy

Who was I, Lorot Son of the Hills,

Not to be bathed in her caressing beam?

At that moment, I made a pact with the Sun—

Not that she could fail me, nay—

That whatever positive energy she lit me

I will carry it through my day

At sunset, I will watch her

To be renewed in her Rejuvenation Phase

That there will be no sunrise nor sunset

That I will let the glory of my life be dulled

And if the Sun burnt my skin

I will remind her, “Love, go easy on me,

I have the whole day of my life,

How will I feel your rays when my skin,

Like a leper’s, is dead to the Truth?”

I will remind the sun

That I will need a piece of her “fiery ball”

Just an iota imbedded in my heart

For sometimes when my heart is dampened

I will need some fire to sparkle an inferno

In a world full of flooded fireplaces

Of dreams that never sparkled, intentions that

Never lit

Some days, I will urge upon the sun,

Like sunset, to watch life’s mysteries

Repose

That I should remember that

Even the sun dies everyday

Sometimes all I will need is to

Realize the frailties of this life

I got a portion of positive energy

The sun of my life is up

I have a pact with the sun

The year 2012 will be a radiant year

The joke in town is:

People’s lives will be so bright

They will need some sunglasses.

14 New Year Resolutions from Echoes of the Hills

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Tororot has seen fit that we see this beautiful year 2012. I had been away for the festive season and now I am back. New Year Resolutions are all the rage now. For the fans of my poetry, this is the New Year Resolution from Echoes of the Hills:

1.       As a continuation of the Echoes, in 2012 there are wonderful things lined up for you. What makes it more exciting is that I made pilgrimage to the Shabaha Hills on two occasions. I am renewed. And when I say I am renewed, I don’t say it lightly. I sat on a boulder, drank in the sights of Kacheliba, did some soul, nay, hill-searching. The echoes will reverberate.

2.       It gets better. I am a better person today. This will reflect in my thoughts and words.

3.       I will try as much as possible to comment on my friends’ blogs. With hindsight, I realize that there were times a comment would have stropped our creativity.

4.       I will continue accepting criticisms. These will make me grow.

5.       I will continue with my child-like curiosity. It is by asking “why” and observing things in a new sense that will bring originality within me.

6.       I will try as much as possible to write my best.

7.       I will follow my heart and write what I deem fit for the moment. My poems are my inspirations.

8.       I will use my poetry to speak for the voiceless. I will use them to praise virtue and ridicule vice. I will use it to educate.

9.       I will use my poetry especially considering that it is an election year in Kenya to give some sort of civic education. I will mock hate-speech, tear at ethnicity and advocate for good governance. I will strive not to be mired in divisive politics for what happened in Kenya in 2007/2008 was caused by bellicose words that inflamed the hearts of a people. I am guilty. I would rather talk about butterflies and the sunrise which could form my Reality and are anyway universal than risk replaying the precursor of what happened during Post Election. I will exercise maximum restraint because my words, especially when carefully spun, have the potential to cause a brother turn against brother. But the same words could help build, restore, educate. All I need is the perspective and grace to do so.

10.   You will be the judge. This blog is all about you. I will respond to your encouragements, answer your queries, take your feedback seriously. If I falter, tell me. If I father ideas, tell me. If I don’t falter and I don’t father ideas, tell me. Sometimes all I need is a word.

11.   I will feed my mind this year with the best and purest thoughts ever known to man (and woman). It is by being a consummate reader that we become better writers and beings. I will feed my soul with books that extol virtues, teach me life skills and motivate me. I will work on expanding my collection of poetry, short stories, novels.

12.   I will wait for a surprise this year. Let us wait for a surprise. It could be our luckiest break ever. Meanwhile, fellow pilgrim, let us be ready when the opportunity comes. I will prepare for it continuously and when it comes I will know it, hold it and flee with it to the Horizons.

13.   Have you ever thought of writing something? Anything? Don’t feel ashamed. I write silly poetry. I will continue writing it. By the time I reach forty it would have made sense. I chose to make it public so that by exposing my limitations to all and sundry, I show to you that there is no bravery that surpasses that of a budding poet writing bad poetry in public. Good thing is that no one canes you! Ha ha.

14.   The other day I told my friends that I was staring at a circle and that I was wondering where the first dot was and that I was confused. One good friend of mine wrote: “Don’t be confused. A dot is itself a circle. Shade the nucleus of the big one and identify it as a dot. There you are!” I asked: ‘But what if the first dot is to solve some puzzle—like to find out where the circle starts?—I know I am moving in circles’. Upon which they said that it was a ‘wild-goose chase’ and that it sounded ‘like a roundabout’. My other good friend responded: ‘Stop this circle business. Who the hell cares where the first dot was placed or whether a dot is a circle? It is like half full or half empty. Put your mind to something constructive.’ Which was sensible. I thanked them for their indulgence and pointed out, at least from my own thinking, that the mystery lies in the first dot and the last. That when one starts drawing, more pressure is applied at the tip. That the same also applies to the last dot and that therein lay my quaqmire. How I wished we continued beyond this. Who knows what we would have discovered. And when you come to think of it, poetry is all about silly things—emotions, stars, moon, wind, waves.  Great things like gravity were about silly things like an apple falling (surely!). There is a level we limit our minds to. We should never let this tragedy befall us in 2012. What appears to be a circular argument could be a nebulous one.

As you would have noticed, the Resolutions are very broad. That assists both of us—me, from your claim of being “short-changed” by me at the end of the year; and you, from having a lot of hard and fast expectations which will disappoint you. Unless something very drastic happens, like my failure to pay my premiums to the Muse or I am kidnapped by aliens (UFOs), you will continue enjoying poetry here.

I don’t know what my first poem this year will be about. Let us see what will echo. Please don’t descend from the hills. You may sit on the boulders, if you must, but don’t descend from the hills.

Your Servant on Muse,