by mukoma wa ngugi
inside looking out, snow is falling and i am thinking | how happy we once were, when promises and dreams | came easy and how when we, lovers covered onlyby a warm eldoret night, you waved a prophecy | at a shooting star and said, “when the time comes | we shall name our first child, kenya” and how i
laughed and said “yes our child then shall be country | and human” and we held hands, rough and toughened | by shelling castor seeds. my dear, when did our
clasped hands become heavy chains and anchors holding | us to the mines and diamond and oil fields? our hands | calloused by love and play, these same hands – when
did they learn to grip a machete or a gun to spit hate? | and this earth that drinks our blood like a hungry child | this earth that we have scorched to cinders – when we
are done eating it, how much of it will be left for kenya? | my dear, our child is born, is dying. tomorrow the child | will be dead.
mukoma wa ngugi, a kenyan poet, author of hurling words at consciousness and co-editor of pambazuka news, shares with us a poem commissioned by the bbc world service on the ongoing crisis in kenya.
