Through My Own Eyes

          I

           I sat with my child today

           Yet I was depressed:

           His eyes were dimmed

           The shrill in his voice disappeared

           The inquisitiveness subdued

            Shocked I was of the child’s

            Lethargy and lack of oomph

           His eyes I peeped into my own sorrow

           Cries of his friends raped by fathers like me

           Filtered into my ears

           Through my child’s eyes

            I  saw his friends selling groundnuts in the streets

           Deep into the night, I saw them washing dishes

           Early morn, I saw them carrying mountains of books

          On their backs, braving the morning cold

          Sipping sugarless porridge, skipping lunch 

          For life is rough, for fathers like me make it rough

 II

            Thrust upon the cruelty, my child’s remorse

            Alerted me of so many of his friends

            Who watches upon them?

            Who fights their small wars?

            Who protects them from early deaths?

            What generation do we lay for them?

            How do we explain our inconsistencies

            Of paternal affection, yet we defile our 3 months olds

            Of breadwinner title, yet we haul our children to the streets

            To parade their misery on the footsteps of man’s mercy

            Yet, in our lofty speeches, we talk of economic emancipation

            Emancipation amidst paedophiles?

            Emancipation in face of robbed future?

            Emancipation amid the screaming headlines?

 III

            But to appear ‘reformist’, fathers like me

            Throw in piecemeal reforms, call in on televisions

            Call the acts beastly, write to the editors

            With screaming curses, animatedly talk of the vice

            Then when some other sensational news pops—

            Say some love potion in Matuu

            All is forgotten, love is the catch word

            Thus the cycle continues

            Children whipped to death for urinating in beds

            Children stressed with Homeworks till 10 p.m

            Children made robots of learning without play

            Girls raped by fathers like me

            Girls sold to prostitution by us, their fathers

            Children fed on adult entertainment

            But, as lethargic as we are,

            These are mere statistics, some media fodder

            Till our children are the subject

      IV

            I looked through my child’s eyes today

            Yet despite the sad theme in his eyes

            When he smiled, I saw my pride swell

            His sadness is fleeting, not like mine

            Which simmers for years, when he is joyed

            Not even a century of woes bogs me down

            His joy is my joy too

            In some big way, thought I,

            These little joys spark the world

            These buds need to blossom

            If you think about it,

            This is the time, my child’s eyes

            Should brighten the world

            No more remorse

            This is the time.

            C) Lorot Salem 2011

Martin Luther King Junior

Image credit: google: chrisabraham.com

We march on with Martin Luther King Jnr

Traversing the streets of Nairobi, Uganda and Tanzania

Singing “we shall overcome”

Marching on through tear gas canisters

Passing through a jet of hot water

In true fashion of satygraha

For the “latter-day-God’s-children”

We march on singing “Haki Yetu”

Infused with the vision of a bright future

Carrying behind us the shadow of maimed souls

Holding in our hearts the bravery of our forefathers

Symbolically walking into our future

We march on with the voices

Dating back to centuries past

Others not heard, tucked away in a nation’s closet

Of bloody past

We march on with voices to be born

Of “brothers’ keepers”

Of “sisters’ keepers”

With fire “shut in their bones”

With  voices true to pin

In a fiduciary capacity

To hold society’s values in trust

We march on through the streets of Nairobi,

Dar-es-Salaam and Kampala

Waving olive leaves

Wearing white gowns

Stepping on pavements in saintly pace

Waving at shops in brotherhood

In unison shouting “Peace”

And at every stop, we demonstrate

Our concern for humanity

The rising food prices

The below-par development

The executions

The corruption

We demonstrate the lost future

Of children unborn

Yet indebted by present-day

Extravagance

We demonstrate the sorrow

Of cancer patients

Persons with HIV/AIDS

Being eaten away

In the periphery, yet

At the centre, they

Have the life-blood

We march on with with Martin Luther King Junior

In satyagraha

To demonstrate the urgency of the moment

To fight for “God’s children”

We march on, undaunted

We march with Luther King Jnr.

C) Lorot Salem 2011

Where is Dedan’s Body?

"It is better to die on our feet than to live on our knees"

                                            --Dedan Kimathi

                                     [Image from thenewblackmagazine.com]

The spirit of the late Marshall Dedan Kimathi

Attacks me in my sleep

Dedan would sit with me in the fireplace

And tell me: 

“Child of Kenya, my spirit has no homestead

When I lived in a body I had no homestead

For my land had been taken away

And now in spirit I hover without perching”

“And these chains, my child, tie me up

Fellow spirits share with my sorrow”

I only shake my head, look at him most forlon

He laughs, grins, adds,

“Strange, though, my child, that the land I fought hard for

Now belongs to the sons of chiefs and bodyguards

While the rest, the sons of mau mau, live by the roadsides”

“Go tell them,” he tells me, “go tell them to bury me in the

way of our people.”

“And lastly, remind them that I need no statues.
They should live by what I died for.

Whitewashed graves don’t cleanse land-grabbers!”

C) Lorot Salem 2011