Uhuru

 

Are you there, Mecere, still  fine and firm

In the blackened system, cruel and infirm?

Where is our fragrance of friends

who fought with green twigs

For voice of wisdom, Ugali and grass

Voice  Mathare Valley, River Road and

space  between Nakuru and Nariobi.

I remember the blast

Shaking the white Norfolk Hotel at midnight

Shattering campus window panes and

Graveyard peace of urban elites

Leisure life in Hilton Inn, Jacaranda and Serena

Black monolith Kenyatta Center did also shiver.

Kisumu Nairobi Mombasa Train

An old lady with wonderful grace

Daily moved like an ebony cylinder

At times like a glistening cobra snake

In wood and safari plain

Carrying curious eyes  of white men.

Fascinated I, get fastened in the belly of gorgeous snake

Kisum-Mombasa wonderful train

With glazed scales as window panes.

Free Masai, proud panthers, and golden lions

Spangled zebras, ridgley giraffe

Carrying birds in thorny grass

I run through them in Mombasa train.

A gentle tap on my hand

Ebony grace on a chiseled face

White teeth adorning spotless sun

I turn around and struck with surprise

See the train bearer with gracious smile.

He smiles. A morning garden sprouts

in me throwing away mean Nairobi in me.

Warm, grace, generous and decent,

He bows with his sumptuous plates;

Pine apples, papaya, juice passion fruits

Water melons, corn flakes and aromatic coffee best.

He spreads the table and spreads all with smile and grace.

“What else would you like to have?”

He says like an angel concerned.

I thank him with my watery mouth

Pleased and sure he gently retires

Behind white curtains of slithering train.

Outside the train some wolves cry

Droughts have damned safari lands.

No rain this year. It was not last.

Cobras hides have gone to cities

On dead elephants’ ivory stacks

Plies as tourist luggage from safari land to city Nairobi.

White men oversee in the Rift Valley

Many rifts in human landscapes:

Sunken faces, receding eyes

Half moon dark stomach

hanging on straw frames.

Trees without leaves

and leaves without trees

Far away last dying vulture screech

Dusty dry bones hurt its parched beak.

Plundered Highlands with stony face

Heave over bodies of Kikuyu dead,

And far away Akamba, Luo and Masai in desert lands

Are trapped, tried and whipped all the night.

Mecere Mugo, tell me dear, how long?

And are you, at least, alright?

I await, you say ashante, not hakuna,

Even though you could be crying

under the rubbles of unfinished Uhuru.

M. Hasan

Sports Club,  Ahmedabad

May 5, 2000

----------------

Note: Ashante = Thanks; Hakuna = No; Uhuru = Freedom in Kiswahili