can you read the face of a river?

Image Credit: Shutterstock

my grandmother once told me that a river is just like us. but it is more, she said.

she would take me to the river and ask me, “is she happy, grandson?”

and as a child i would tell her, “how can I tell?”

she would tell me that if she were happy,

would she frolic about, throwing up her arms

and uproot trees at her banks, just as an excited teenager would?


or would she just lie as a love-smitten girl would
 
on her bed and just smile? 
 

(now, I got confused) 
 

would the quiet waters be the face of seething anger— the type of anger that ripples on the 

surface and boils inside  the treacherous waters known to drown full-sized men?


i have seen cheerful, boisterous waters swallow a man and I thought, “here you go, capricious 

waters, you don’t kill people in your excitement!” 

and in some afternoons, the same waters, then in seething, raging anger but just flowing 

gracefully  have hugged the feet of men who crossed to their safety.


Chinjakuku— he was our village tailor. he got drunk one day.  river suam was in a cheerful, 

boisterous mood. so it was throwing up twigs and knocking off stones. she was in her element. 

Chinjakuku—alcohol stirring revolt in his head—was also in a cheerful, boisterous mood. he 

stepped into the waters and his flailing arms soon lost their strengths as he was suffocated by 

the embrace of the waters.

it was like when you throw up a child up and clutch it and throw it higher and higher and it 

slips through your hand. love is like that.  and when we searched for Chinjakuku, river suam 

just tucked him under her bosom. for one day. 


then next morning, he was floating and the waters were just aloof, innocent even, as if nothing 

had happened. 

the same waters that have quenched the thirsts of travelers with parched throats. 

the same waters that have hugged the feet of travellers who have crossed it to safety.

 
no, grandmother.

are these waters happy or sad or excited or hospitable? 

i can’t tell.

i am still on the river’s journey to read her face just like a palmist reads our future.




c) Salem Lorot/ echoesofthehills 2017

~

for Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Flood

habida

her body was flown into the country.
we saw it on TV. her mother lunged into the coffin, tore her dress,
slapped her chest and her grief gave way. she collapsed on the glass
from where her daughter's face watched the world. her father stared on in stoic pain.
wails and moans suffocated the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport air.

we saw the news months earlier. it was a video clip. three men
stood around her, one kicked her in her teeth, the other held her arms,
the last was pounding her. i watched that clip and cried. i saw the firm grip of violence.

we got furious. Habida's mother appeared on TV, with tasbihi in her hand,
her voice was hoarse with mourning. her stomach was a valley of the depression she was in.
"death, please come take me. Habida, what have they done to you?"

we read the news. Habida was hidden in a dungeon.
from that pit that the darkness of humanity embraced her,
she was raped. for eleven years. day and night.
every year, they would harvest children from her womb.
eleven births. eleven robberies. eleven children she never saw.
she would push and cry and deliver children her hands never held.
as her babies would be carried away, she would hear their tiny cries
fade away. they say Habida died eleven times. and finally the twelfth time.

i saw Habida's photo when she was alive and healthy and free.
she had covered her head in a hijab and her pretty eyes watched.
i saw innocence. she was like my sister looking over me.
you would see her picture and say, "Mashallah!"
to imagine that Habida would be desecrated kills me.

i was in deep grief that day Habida's body was flown.
her mother's cry haunts me. her father's pained expression wearies my soul.
i walk around aimlessly and every lady in a hijab reminds me of Habida.

"Allah will avenge for you, mama Habida."

but to avenge is what courses in my heart. to descend into that dungeon
and knock walls and chop and demand to see the hands that stole Habida's eleven children.
i want to grab those three men who humiliated Habida and knock their heads against themselves
so hard they would be dizzy and bleed. but that is not the tao. and Habida's eyes wouldn't approve of it.

see Habida's grave. a mound of human greed and heartlessness.
see her decomposed body in eternal repose. at peace. finally. ironically.
see the flowers growing on her grave. see the roots of trees searching for her children.
see her bones: white with beauty, though broken by those three men.
see Habida. isn't she beautiful?

-

echoesofthehills/ Salem Lorot 2017


for Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Human Trafficking

#HumanTrafficking #EndHumanTrafficking

The prompt from Poets United invited us to write a poem on human trafficking.