VIGILS

Love shatters like a glass
if left unrubbed
perhaps untouched it can't glow

a member so tender
from a love now rendered motionless
movement without progress

i lay prostrate throught the warm night
immobilized by your present-absence
let me go please!

what am i saying

© September 2011

WAMBUI OTIENO SLEEPS

The Empress sleeps @ Lee
unperturbed by the Niles of our teary eyes
content with grandiose battles fought
colonial ghosts that were rendered obsolete
and a clan at Umira that will always remember

Every long journey
renders whumanity to the ultimate
a dreaded stride to a climax of loss

Wambui sleeps.

Global mother,
if strong bonds of accepted kinship
violently and unwillingly
now tear you from us who barely 'knew' you
what then of the loved ones you bore and nurtured?

yet this motionless body
is just a but a vessel
that carried your indefatigable spirit
that will lingers eternally in us

here,
we salute
a commitment to fair freedoms
unshakeable belief in justice for one
as justice for all

rest my dear
now you must rest

the cherubs celebrate your return
this return
      to a place where we all know you belong,
a peaceful abode for gallant warriors
our freedom s/heroes
are lined in anticipation of their kin

say jambo to Pinto
Muge and Kaiser and Akumu too
remember JM, Kimathi and Murumbi?
a hug to Samoei and a toast to Mekatilili
tell Jaramogi Not Yet Uhuru endures

virginia edith wambui waiyaki otieno-mbugua sleeps.

tell them sister-soldier:
tell them the homeguards rule still
yet still we rise in search of the promise!

and the betrayers of Uhuru?
they look down in shame
their hearts palpitating at every turn
in search of redemption

their earthly surrogates
still terrorize widows, orphans and squatters
of their land grabbing orgies

rest dear Sister-Mother
warrior-Queen
defender of our Kenyanity

rest now
Mau Mau Daughter, rest.

© September 2011

FLOWERS

If the future is not present
and the past is absent from the sunken pit
of collective memory

this then is an illegal gathering
only a strike of lightning
can stop this act of subterfuge

the season of bloom
is here again
no space for gloom in this era

lift your eyes

© September 2011

FULFILMENT

To find that true you
to walk after
follow that intuitive urge
to live each day
from the heart of oneself

this is to find inner peace

because then,
only then
when our inner voices
chime and rhyme
with the ceaseless beats
of an edgeless universe

only then
shall joy become
the soundtrack of our lives

© September 2011