Oh, Ngugi!
Lights out
Leaving us
In pitch darkness
And a gall
Of pain
In our hearts.
With Achebe, Clark
And now you, gone
We are left to
Ponder of pioneers
Without heirs!
Is this the continuation
Of the African situation?
But, weep not child, Ngugi.
Tell Nyambura, you’d see Jesus
As you cross the river beteeen
Without a grain of wheat
In your stomach.
Promise me, Ngugi
That you’d flog
The devil on the cross
With petals of blood
In your hands as you
Approach Jesus.
That ‘ll be real homecoming
For the black hermit!
At His feet
You”d learn of all things
Of all secret lives
Including the
The trial of Dedan Kimathi
A writer’s secret diary and
Why we marry when we want….
And the colonial diary
Detailing the blood-chilling
Pacification of the Kikuyu,
The Massai, the Luo, the Kalenjin, the Luhya, the Waswahili, the Mkamba,
The Muindi, the Giriama
The Mzungu
And the rest of the lot buried
In the rubble of history.
Ngugi, who knows,
At the feet of Jesus
You’d find answers
To your life-long quests
I know only a few.
Ngugi, it’s time to let u go
But I will not
Until you tell me about
Your last work!
Weep not child
It is not yet over!
*Benson Upah