Purge Our Consciences

From my lowly bachelor’s house Proudly christened ‘Embassy Fair’ I woke up to the chirping of birds On the trees above and across the vale And the riverine bushes in-between I woke up to the crowing of cocks And the mooing of cows I woke up to the leaping of calves And the bleating of anxious goats; To the braying of the donkey The barking of my brother’s dog And to the mumbling of the sheep. There was no time to brood Or think negative thoughts Or linger on yesterday’s deeds. I opened up all my senses And voluptuously drank of the new day. As my feet stroked the dew On my way to the reserve fields My eyes fathomed Mt. Ithangune The eastern fortress of Mt. Kenya Itself a mere one thousand feet higher. Then we were mountain warriors And our locale elevated us accordingly Leaving no room for flippancy Even when it was flipping cold. Times were when our men grazed there On the slopes of Kirima kia Ng’ombe Times were when Omo elders made rain there Little did we know then (as now?) That the God of Rain had slumbered And demanded pure white fattened rams Delivered by pure white-haired men Whose penance upon the mountain Would atone the sins of the Meru clans And make our mountain God weep And let his tears soften our rich soils To ward off barrenness once more And banish famine from our midst; And as our fast-flowing rivers swelled So, too, our cattle and our granaries. For although our God lived at the apex Yet he allowed us to get this close And so to commune with him Without touching his garment Craftily spread over the three peaks. Krapf and Rebmann never knew this They were mere trekkers, mere explorers Of a continent pregnant with mystery That their kinsmen sought to make a home, A distant home away from home. One time I HEARD THEM TEACH THAT Krapf Was the first man to see Mt Kenya To which I responded, ‘Really? Aren’t you kidding?’ So what kind of men were the mountain warriors- Blind men? The Meru, the Kikuyu, the Embu, The Wakamba, the Masai, the Samburu, the Borana- Were they all blind men then? Stone blind- All those Africans that had known it before Krapf? Desecration followed desecration As alien men sought to climb Mt Kenya And alien men sought to expropriate Not just a field but all our land. From a handful of missionaries and clerks To shiploads of coolies and soldiers To throngs of settlers and administrators To segregation, imposition and subjugation Till the people- wary, weary and desperate Rose from the caves, valleys and forests From every blessed nook and cranny Chanting MAU, MAU, MAU, MAU (Mwingereza Aende Ulaya Mwafrica Apate Uhuru- White Man Return to Europe African man Attain Independence!) Though a youngster and much afraid I sang that, too, in my youthful heart Forbidden, I still sang it, in my heart For I had seen the sword on my mum’s throat As they sought to extract a confession I had seen the village burn down And I had seen the limp body of a fighter Paraded through the village paths But that was over half a century ago And although I had seen the aftermath Of Kaya Bombo and Kaya Tiwi in Kwale On my way here (but thought it a dream) And the agony of the 1998 Al Qaeda attacks I had not seen much else; nor will I ever see The likes of Eldoret, Nakuru, or Naivasha After the 2007 election- I ardently pray not For this is not the white man in Africa That we are up against, surely not here Not this long after regaining our independence No! Not here in my beloved, bounteous Kenya. It is commercial and political greed A vicious, ugly cross-breed beast perhaps That is all there is, that is all there can be And these we must banish from our hearts For who can bear to see Kenyan blood Flowing down River Tana or Athi or Nzoia Or swelling the banks of Lake Victoria, Nakuru or Turkana? Who can plead such a case before God And come away with his soul intact? Have the Kenyan people not chosen Through a brand new constitution Their route to freedom, justice and progress? Have they not decreed their own destiny? Let me hear it from you and you and you Whose hand or sword or bullet or arrow Was stained by the blood of woman, man or child Let me hear it from you who schemed or aided And you who lent your tongue or thought Or simply sought refuge in silence and waited For something, anything to happen to ‘them.’ Let me hear you say, ‘Enough, enough! Purge our consciences O Mighty One!’