Canada, Are You Listening?

I have read a heart-breaking development in Ottawa, Canada which has prompted this heart-rending post + poem from my Koko, Sherry Blue Sky. You might want to read it so that you can understand my consternation too.

I want to give it a voice too.

This is in response to Kim’s prompt this week on #Passion. You might want to visit and read other worthy poems on this prompt at Poets United.

~

Canada, what spell are you under

So odious, so ignominious as not to make you quake?

What detachment has visited you

As not to heed the plaintive breasts of a people disenfranchised?

What brass neck, what chutzpah impels you

To drown the din of reason floating in the air?

Canada, show me the trick

You use to wax your ears from Nishiyuu

Teach me how you do it, Canada

I mean, is that how you give audience

To Theresa Spence, the Attawapiskat Chief?

Is your memory so short, Canada

As not to realize that a march led people to freedom

And that not even the blizzard and the wind

Deterred them?

Have you forgotten the vanguards who braved

The water-horses?

Can you really STOP

What appears to be the Grand March

To seek audience in the great Temple of Truth?

Thus, let it be then

That what is imprinted in people’s hearts is laid bare

In Parliament Hill

Let then the shame, the disparagement reek to high heavens

Let the furrowed faces of the marching people

Let the broken beads of sweat drip

To add salt to the tawdry conscience of a Nation unkind

For if Canada truly can’t hear the din of the gathered mass

At Parliament Hill

Then it should bear the vacuity it has set her people in.

Mummy, Please Wake Up!

You watched it in the news:

Stray bullet kills a mother

But you were reading the newspaper

So you flicked the channel

Looked for something more cheery

Because after all you had a long day

And that mother remained a statistic.

Of course, the Police Spokesman

Regretted the “unfortunate” incident

As armed robbers “had fierce gun battles”

Thus, that mother’s death

Drew a few lamentations here and a smirk there

Because she was a faceless woman.

Until I saw her son.

A cute, tender soul in Class Three.

That day, as her mother breathed her last

Between a Kiosk and raw sewage,

Her son tried to lift her up

Crying, “Mother, wake up, mum, let us go home...”

And as he upped his efforts,

He cried freely, swinging his mother’s lifeless arm.

That boy is an orphan now.

But again, he is a statistic, you know.

And he is faceless.

And somehow that makes us easy.

~
In response to Poets United's prompt Verse First -- REACTIONS

FYI

I can see that it has been a while since I posted a poem here. I deeply regret this. I am at the point in life where you are trying to make it in the entry period in a career. So my schedule is really hectic nowadays trying to discover more and more of myself, dreaming big, experimenting, trying to arouse the greatest potentials within me.

And I am silently reading a lot and watching numerous documentaries of my interest. I am at the ‘re-birth’ point.

I have got a couple of writing assignments I am doing for which I need to finish soon.

Here in Kenya life is great. We conducted peaceful elections and we have a President-elect. The election is contested in court and we are awaiting the verdict of the Supreme Court.

I discovered Ven. Bhante Wimala a few days ago through a colleague and I am inspired by the humanitarian efforts he is pursuing in the world. 

I am doing great and wish to thank my readers for being there for me.

Humbly,
  @echoesofthehill (Twitter)

Message on Kenya's Election on 4th March

One day to go and Kenya will be having her elections. After so much campaign, now Kenya has to decide who the next President will be and all the other leaders.

I will be casting my vote very early in the morning. After listening to the two presidential debates and carefully reflecting on how important my vote will be, for the first time I will be voting.

4^th March will be the moment.

Euphoria will not sweep me. The propaganda I have heard floating around will be like a fireside chat to me. And being informed of where I want Kenya to be, I will cast my ballot for a better Kenya.

And I will remain peaceful. After casting my ballot, I will know that whoever wins will be my president and he/she will get my support and respect whether I supported them or not. And to my fellow voters and Kenyans, whether they support the candidates I will choose or not, I will still love them and respect them.

Today, I saw my fellow Kenyans fighting over campaign T-shirts and caps. Four shabbily dressed young men were tugging at one free T-shirt. Then it dawned on me that they put on those T-shirts not because they prefer those candidates per se but because they don’t have the T-shirts to put on. They are that poor!

My attitude towards politics has been this: after elections, you still struggle with the same problems. Over time, I have learnt not to expect much from politicians. Even during campaigns, I have remained aloof, perhaps realizing that I have a mission in this life and that in my own small way I can help build a better Kenya and the world.

To my fellow Kenyans, go and vote on 4^th March. After that, help build Kenya. It is always about us, the citizens, not the leaders. We have wasted the first two months in the campaign fever. Let us do the necessary and get to some serious business.

We are EAGLES in this JUBILEE YEAR helping to RESTORE and BUILD KENYA with AMANI, intent on REFORM and DEMOCRACY. That is how I see it, a constitutive whole. 

Vote for your preferred candidate, don’t go about burning your neighbour’s house and remember that we are one big family of God. If you forget this, please don't forget those four young men who were fighting for T-shirts. Most of us are not super-rich and on average we are barely surviving. That should unite us.

With Love,

@echoesofthehill