dear ones (poem)

#JusticeForWillie (Poems)

On 23rd June 2016, Willie Kimani (advocate), Josephat Mwenda (a boda boda rider) and Joseph Muiruri ( a taxi cab driver) disappeared and a week later, on 1st July 2016, their bodies were found at Odonyo Sabuk River.

The members of the legal profession in Kenya condemned the killings and staged a one week protest.

These poems were written during that week from July 2nd to 8th July. On 9th July, advocate Willie Kimani was laid to rest.

I wrote the following on 1st July 2016 upon learning of the cruel death of my colleague in the profession, his client and a taxi driver:

Ninalaani mauaji ya wakili Willie Kimani, dereva wa teksi Joseph Muiruri na Josphat Mwenda. Ni sikitiko kubwa kupata taarifa kuwa miili yao imepatikana katika mto wa Oldonyo-Sabuk. Kifo chake wakili Willie Kimani na wenzake kinatuhumiwa kuhusiana na kesi aliyokuwa akiendesha kortini. Tukio hili linazua maswali mengi kuhusiana na huduma za mawakili kortini haswa maisha yao yakiwa hatarini na maadui wa haki. Taifa ambalo linaongozwa na mtutu wa bunduki, vitisho na majangili ni taifa litakalosalia nyuma. Alimradi taifa lenyewe lisipowapa raia wake usalama, ibara za katiba ni kelele mnadani. 

Wakili Kimani hayupo tena.

Ndugu Joseph Muiruri hayupo tena.

Ndugu Josphat Mwenda hayupo tena.

Inaniuma, tena sana.

Makiwa familia, marafiki na mawakili wenzangu.

On 6th July, I participated in my professional body's LSK Protest March to dramatise the shame and righteous indignation of the heinous and callous torture, strangulation and dumping and/or drowning in a river of my fallen colleague Willie Kimani, his client Mwenda and taxi driver Muiruri. The photo below captures the sombre mood.

On that day, I wrote the following:

A day like today, in 1944, Georges Mandel, French patriot, was executed. And a day like this in 1935, Dalai Lama was born. On this day in 1775, the U.S Congress issues a “Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms”.

And today more than 10,000 advocates of the High Court of Kenya will hold a protest march to dramatise the shame and righteous indignation of the heinous and callous torture, strangulation and dumping and/or drowning in a river of Advocate Willie Kimani, a client Mwenda and taxi driver Muiruri.

Today, we demonstrate that what we have are “nice sharp quillets of law” à la Warwick to Lords in Shakespeare’s Play Henry VI. We will march to the temple of justice and solemnly ask the State why Willie's body is lying lifeless in eternal repose in the morgue when he should be donned in a wig and a bib and seeking justice for the others. At the temple of justice, we will ask, what imagery and metaphor should be construed for the blood strewn on the wall at the very temple of justice.
Iustitia!

‪#‎JusticeForWillie‬
‪#‎JusticeForMwendwa‬
‪#‎JusticeForMuiruri‬

#Poem 1- A blotch on our statute book

#Poem 2- here is an empty gown and band

 #Poem 3- I sit here wondering

#Poem 4- The phoenix song

#Poem 5- Thoughts expressed in Kiswahili

the beauty of dancing flames

when leaps of flames lick a school
the cackling sounds of fervour

raising arms in rebellion. when billows of
smoke trumpet fragrance

of education gone awry. isn't it a beautiful
sight to see the ashes of the pretentious edifice

blown by the mocking wind? isn't there magic,
something of hallowed curiosity

in the soot, the ashes of burnt books,
the half-burnt book-shelves

testily saying, 'here, grab this wood'.
that is what happens when education

loses meaning. i used to think incendiary thoughts,
the sparkling flames

of revolutionary ideas or just the pursuit of
knowledge, telling the professor

"i need not useless qualifications but a mind
that can pursue a thought

as a hunter would a deer." but I was wrong.
for when I see these flames

i smile wryly at the astonished look around
and a nation dousing the flames

of a burning academic pretence. but unwittingly
fanning the flames

of testosterone-filled, rogue, 'utado'
generation of students, the mirror images

of a nation that once burnt itself but
whose God's grace doused the flames

at exactly 3 a.m, the Godly hour
when the Divine Will triumphed over

a state that was to-be-no-more. when a coward
runs to you, saying, "look, I will burn

myself!" do you quizzically look at her and say,
" please do it during the day, so that we see

the magic of a walking inferno" or do you
tearfully hug her and say,

"here is a piece of me, if you want to burn yourself
get the petrol and let us both burn

in a pyre." but when twenty cowards
congregate at your doorstep

saying, " we assemble here to burn ourselves
as a protest to the

uselessness of this life." do you get a bakora
and chase them down through the

village square, past the butcher, past
the bookshop, past

the crematorium, where incidentally
they should torch themselves

to let the wind of death blow
their ashes, perhaps in solidarity

to their earthly protest? but what happens
when curious minds, once a tabernacle

of ideas, walk around dazed, seeing beauty
in book-ashes, book-shelf-ashes,

lecture-hall-ashes. anyway, burnt schools
never scare me. What scares me

is that for a long time, our education
has burnt our child-like curiosity

and what we carry in our heads
are ashes: cindered dreams, powdered

cogitations, embers of passivity, charcoals
of dulled yes-yes, relics of shame

that accept untruths, bigotry. isn't it
curious that

the thoughts of flames and ashes
evoke within us

passionate intensity
like a town crier's announcement

in the noon-day of our heightened ignorance.
See those flames? they are

a harbinger of hope. see those ashes? they are
the urn's contents, a reminder of the
hollowness of our education.

for Keneuoe Moshoeshoe

to the lady that loves lesheleshele
and bohobe ba metsi,
the bread that home-grown hands bake

to the mosali a motle,
the beautiful lady
motho a ratang naha e hlaha,
the one who loves nature

to Moshoeshoe,
mosali a mosehla,
the light-skinned one
with likoti marameng,
the dimples that lie at the cusp of time and beauty

the one with lintshi,
the eyelashes that stand outstretched
in poised duty to majesty

this is your mmino,
the music that you listen to;
your ears dancing to words
tapping on African drum

thothokiso ena ke ngolla
ngoana naha ya lesotho,
I write this to the daughter of the land of the Sotho

this poem,
this mmino,
is like a traditional muratina that you sip
at the foot of the hill

this song is the moving fingers of a flutist,
the rush of melody spreading arms of
freedom on the spaces of memory.

a strange thing happened to me today

a strange thing happened to me today.

 

a crowd of words ran towards me—

a rare thing to occur

and unsure, i ran away from them

yet they chased me down the alley

down the treacherous road of forsaken ideas

past the rocks, hands poised in the sky,

perhaps expressing resignation of a reluctant pen

and in the debris of the confusion

prose beckoned me, a decibel lower than

the shrill of raucous, forced words

with a thin veneer of superficiality.

a  strange thing happened to me today.

torrents of elegant words rounded me up

it was at 3 a.m., a strange hour

when  brave dawn cold gained entry through the louvres

elbowing a reluctant thought and sat it

right in the middle of my page.

a strange thing happened to me today.

words conspiratorially whispered to me:

clear, crisp thoughts that could sparkle if ruffled;

words dancing, gyrating to the beat of my imagination;

words dressed with hyphenated asides, yet brief as a major-general's command;

unrestricted, unrestrained outstretched arms of words;

unafraid of the editor’s noose

words shouting—

“Go tell madam Few-Words-Matter that

the Norman Mailer Pressure Group resents her high-handedness;

we have a right to associate in any way we please

& picket across thousands of pages if we want!”

a  strange thing happened to me today.

my Muse came and said,

"Boy, grab your pen. 

we got some work to do!" 

c) Lorot Salem/ echoes of the hills 2016

for little Cheptoo

it is a frightening world, dear young sister,

& you might not have realized it yet

& it scares me

the dreams you have today

soaring up, unlimited like imagination,

the shining light in your eyes

the curious questions you ask today

there will be a time they may be dimmed

by the strictures of the society

telling you, “You are a woman!”

as if the dreams in your heart

were marked with the ink named woman

you see, Sister, there was once a time

when baby Lizzy  and her twin brother, Billy,

were with me

& i was bathing them

& she asked me why Billy had dudu

while she had not

& that was the briefest question that I had no answer for

i remember also a question that little Billy once asked

a friend differently-abled in crutches visited me

& Bill asked what happened to his legs and why he wasn’t walking properly

& again, I had no answer but I mumbled something

the world you are living in, Sister,

will not be fair to you and if you will not be careful

it might pull you down, suck life out of you & drag you on dirt

for the blooms, there are wilted petals

yellowing and wilting in stunted dreams

& gardeners, early in the morning, pick them up

weep for them and not even their tears

drenching the rotting life resuscitate them to life

i will never tell you to behave like a grown-up, dear Cheptoo,

because being grown-up has stunted me

this society wants me to act like an adult

to dress like an adult, eat like an adult, think like an adult

and being an adult is no fun anymore

i no longer ask those curious questions like Billy and Lizzy

i don’t play chodoko anymore, or sheki, or koraa, or use fantili

i stopped going to mtelezo or swimming at pango

because adults are expected to behave like adults

being an adult is no fun anymore

see, Cheptoo, you say anything the way you say it

and you don’t care and no one has any problem

because you are a child

when you are not happy, you just say it

and when you are happy, you show it

but we adults are complicated

a person may be happy but you won’t know

a person may be unhappy and you won’t know

sometimes they are happy-unhappy and still you don’t know

how do you do it, Cheptoo?

they way you cry, your chest heaving

the way you laugh, your chuckle so full of life

sometimes I laugh but my insides are tearing apart

you see, you don’t want your enemies to know that you are unhappy

so you pretend to be happy even when your body is screaming in pain

dear Cheptoo, if you forget everything else

don’t forget this:

develop a fierce love for books

for though the society may want to pull you down

books will be your best leverage

read all manner of books & never let your education

interfere with your love for reading

for when you will be done with formal education

you will realize that the best education

was one that you did at your leisure

when no big stick was wielded

~echoes of the hills 29.2.2016