Thank You Mt Kenya

For milliards of tough years You have stood in our midst Unperturbed, indomitable And you have enticed the rain And it has showered our fields Our ridges and verdant plains And filled not only our rivers But our streams and rivulets And much else of our realm For milliards of long years! When the first rays of the sun Gently slap your sleepy face Urging you to part your garment Of white and grey and sometimes Darker cumulo-nimbus colours Do you ever shy away and turn As though from a sight unloved Or summon your three peaks To hide you from the earliest Touch of a brand new dawn? When I think of your numerous sacred grooves When I dream of your twenty or so glacial tarns When I fathom your five thousand metre height And this right on the path of the equatorial sun I am deeply humbled and promptly reminded That the God of my people and of our cousins Dwells up there untroubled by the elements I am reminded, too, of the elephant highways Which traverse our ridges on the way north-east To the warmer grasslands of Nyambene Hills I dare not look up to you Without plenty of gratitude I dare not hide my shy face Without plenty of ingratitude For I know and all of us know That you have been our dear And most beloved benefactor That has withheld not a thing That has stood by the people Beyond measure, beyond all Thank you for your tears Thank you for your prayers Thank you for your ice and snow Thank you for your rivers and rivulets And thank you, too, for your love For the men and women galore All children of all races and hue Who inhabit for the time being Limbs of your most splendid And most bountiful slopes!