THINK BIG: BEN CARSON

At Poets United Thursday Think Tank, there is a prompt to write a poem inspired by a book one has read or is reading. I have read hundreds of books now from as diverse areas as possible but the one that will always stand out is THINK BIG by Ben Carson.

I read the book after I had finished form four.  I wish I had read it earlier.

Never have I been influenced by a book than THINK BIG. The acrostic stands for:

T -Talents/time: Recognize as gifts from God;

H -Hope for good things and be honest;

I -insight from people and good books;

N -Be nice to all people;

K  -Knowledge: Recognize as they are key to living;

B -Books: Read them actively;

 I -In-depth learning skills: Develop them;

G -God: Never get too big for Him.

I also read Gifted Hands (perhaps contrary to what should have been expected since it came first). You see, in the village where I grew up the danger was that there were a lot of uncertainties about the future one had on education and being “different”.  So, we read because that is what we had been told to do. And when one finished form four, one knew that that was it.

Then THINK BIG came into the picture.

I was opened up to a world of a thousand possibilities. I was given a pedestal where I could stand and say, ‘yes, folks, I am here to rule the world’.  So, urged by Ben Carson, I grew from that timid, cocooned village boy to one ready to take the world by storm. I wasn’t very sure about doing Law then. After that, I believed it earnestly. In my learning at Campus, I read intently. I never read to pass exams (though that was the ultimate goal, unfortunately). I have always tried not to be narrow in my reading. So, I don’t read Law only. I read spiritual books, I read biographies, I read proverbs, I read history, I read novels ( classicals come into mind such as Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, John Grisham, African authors notably Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Kenyan authors especially Meja Mwangi, David Mulwa, Dawood—honestly, I cannot name all of them). And there are philosophical books which I admire a lot. The thinkers such as Ralph Ewaldo Emerson, Voltaire, Friedrich Nietzche, and many others, in their books, expand our minds to such elasticity they can never be the same again.

Well, now to the poem, inspired by the book THINK BIG.

So, someone thought that by holding a gun he is so powerful?

Fingers on trigger, ready to rip, where is power in that?

I say a book in somebody’s hands is the most powerful

I know of countless little frames who with books

Have wielded so much power by thought

Their fists are this small, their bellies are these small,

If you met them in the train station or somewhere near a mall

They will be your ordinary guy

But verily verily I tell you

If you measured their minds by ounces

The kilo of their thoughts will break the weighing machine

Such are books, such are thoughts

I don’t know of any other way

To improve one’s welfare than through books

Believe me, I tried mediocrity and it didn’t work

I would watch flat-out dimwittedness cascade before me

And I would swat it hard only for it to taunt me

Been years now, I hear she lives in another town

Well, I confess, I can’t fight

So, for a few hours reading

Brushing through what others before me thought and said

I am called a genius!

The other day, I ran through the inventory of my wealth

Hardly any apartment nor car

Just stacks of books

When time comes I will tell my children,

“Children, I was a wealthy man, of that be sure,

Not your ordinary trappings of wealth

No, in these books I leave you, search for Truth,

Rub minds with the great sages, aim for greatness

Ordinary people strive for food, clothing and shelter

Great people strive for Essence, Spirituality and Higher Realms”

Utabiri wa Msomaji Matumbo ya Mbuzi*

My son, you will not get lost.

Yesterday, I slaughtered a goat for you

Studied the matumbo carefully

So many paths, so many deviations

So many illusions, so many falsehoods

All strewn your way, son

There was a river crossing your path, son

Not a rowdy one, no, just a small silent stream

And as I looked at it, my eyes clouded

Those treacherous hill slopes, no I wasn’t afraid of,

Those forests with wanyama wa porini, no I wasn’t afraid of,

Those shafts of lightning and thunder, no no I wasn’t afraid of,

It was that stream I was afraid of.

Son, many men have drowned in this stream

Didn’t our people say that a silent stream drowns a man?

You see, son, the river beckons,

“Step with both feet, I am shallow”

And fools do so

We know that you dip one foot first

Or get a lukup and test the waters

Or even whisper to the river,

“River god, don’t be angry at me

I am a traveller greeting you and crossing”

And you are spared, the River god is merciful

Son, watch out for that stream

Watch out for her lull

I am not very worried about the cliffs

For I know you are a warrior with instincts.

*Kiswahili for “the prediction of the reader of goat’s offals”.

Matumbo- Offals.

Lukup- Pokot for walking stick.

Wanyama wa porini- Kiswahili for wildlife

# For a Prompt of Poets United’s Thursday Think Tank #108 Compass

Whose Camel Sandals Are these?

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The feet of a pilgrim, steady as it might seem,

Can weave on sands, lost and directionless,

Made dusty by the desert storms

They too, like the broken compass,

Remind us all of what used to be;

In a desert, I saw an abandoned pair of camel sandals

While feeling it in my palms, I wept

Another pilgrim, lost and buried in the sand-dunes,

Must have met his death

The sandals spoke of his life

They were old and torn,

Evidence of how used they were,

On top of it, there were some beadworks

Strange it seemed, the desert offered such magnificence

May be he circled round and round,

Looking for an oasis

May be, just maybe-for the thought chokes me-

A violent storm buried him,

Or maybe he kept still somewhere at this spot,

Resigned to his fate, his life cast to the desert

Or maybe he just walked on and on

Conscious of the dissipating energy

Yet happy to be a traveler, nonetheless

I really wouldn’t tell

But these camel sandals

Is a labyrinth to his soul.

# In response to Poets United's Thursday Think Tank #102 Labyrinth.

Riddle

Trapped in the stubble of his beard

Was a zephyr of mystery

Of thoughts that resided within him.

Unfurled within his reach

Were sylphlike convictions

Of men filled with self-doubt.

Ideas, fettered in frail minds,

Walked away to their freedoms

Further delaying the take-off.

So, unshaken, he carved a path

On the rock hardened by naysayers

Bit by bit, piece by piece

Till a towering statue of magnificence

Stood in place.

My Son and I

When I look at my son

Fingers flicking on the play station

I marvel

Some few years ago in 1967

When I was his age

There were no such gadgets

Instead, we played sheki and birkoli

And shot each other using jumla plant guns

Girls played kora, boys played lifundo

I liked pepeta, I dribbed the ball like Christian Ronaldo

We made clay toys at Kacheliba Mixed

We went to mtelezo at Shabaha

Hunted for hyraxes and hares

But my son,

My son shoots with his toys

I don’t get it—he shoots people!

Or drives fast cars by pressing buttons

We are world apart,

I, the old fogey who played in the dust,

And my son, who sits up all day playing video games

I once sneaked into my son’s room and tried them

I think when I saw a figure aim a gun at me, I ducked

That was the last I had with those weapons!

Photo credit: Google.

How Times Change!

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The Old Man taps his snuff bottle gently

Then peers into a distance

As if in a reverie:

A bad mannered young man

Wagged his fingers on his face

He winced, and hoped

That lightning never struck him

Another tail of a goat blew dust

Into his eyes with his big motokaa

And now, so many miles from the market,

He had forgotten to buy his tobacco

His nose, like pepper on wound, irritated

When his feet was light,

He could walk from Nasal to Nauyapong’

Swift like an antelope

When he was this size (so young actually)

Donkeys carried posho and never stirred dust

Then, if somebody’s bad whispered

Was caught in his ears

He could tear him into sixteen pieces

How times change!

Poem written in response to Poets United's The Thursday Think Tank #86 - Rebirth

The Voices Within Us

I heard some times back

That all good things come in threes

And so are bad things;

Amidst conflicting priorities in life

You could be tossed hither and thither

Doubts will arise, selfishness will creep in

Hitherto good intentions will be marred

Bad will transcend to the worse

Standards will dwindle, finances will be low

It would be easy to rebel against society

A misplaced anger upon the people who made you

Trapped in whimsical wants

But the melody of our hearts,

The siren in our conscience

Will SCREAM

Nine times out of ten

Those who are in line with society are right

I read that from a letter of an old lawyer to son

Find that voice, Pilgrim,

That will speak for society

Not against them

Say YES to that voice

And you will never be wrong.

In response to the Poets United's The Thursday Think Tank #83- YES