Simple pleasures

Simple pleasures

Simple small gestures

Being together

Looking into each others eyes

Discovering each other

The humour

So raw and hidden

The grey streaks in their wheat coloured hair

The feel of his hand in yours

His arm around you

As you go to sleep

Becoming familiar

Bringing down the wall of strangeness

Sharing a fruit

A cookie

Sharing experiences

Stories

Memories

Photos

Our photos

Strangers photos

Beautiful strangers

Tummy aches

Mixing concoctions

Playing night nurse

Or medicine woman

Or ‘witch’

Like we call them in Africa

Oh, the simple pleasures

Of simple things

Simple gestures

Beautiful gestures

Making memory!

African dance...........

Swishing her beautiful African behind to the samba beat

Her lime green mini dress with little flowers

Seeming to accentuate her quick tempo

Her hair bouncing off her bare shoulders

The thin knotted string straps over her shoulders

moving with the beat too

Her swiftness defying her well rounded form

She coaxes her man to join her

He is too shy

Turns around and swishes her bottom at him

Provocatively

Her feet are now moving at a maddening speed

Rapid tapping that a Zulu dancer would envy

Her torso slightly hunched

Hair now flipping from side to side

The frenzy catches the room

The walls seem to move with her rhythmic compulsion

The curtains flutter

Everything moves in harmonious rhythm

She now seems to be in a trance

Shaking faster

Moving round so fast

She forms a swirl

Her hands in the air now, the only visible part of her

The rest is a rainbow of colours

A cyclical rainbow

A rainbow of dance

An African dance!

Who are you man?

Who are you man?

That you toil and moil

Dash and run

At day break, running

Late into the night…chasing

What do you chase?

Who knows?

You have become fickle

Your temperament quick

Humanity seeping away

You take, and take

Never getting enough

You speak freedom

That you run after it!

Ha?

Yet you are in your own incarceration

Every facet resembles a jail cell

With walls of prejudice

Walls that blot the light out of your eyes

Eyes that have ceased seeing

Walls that blot out your feelings

Only vanity is left to feel

Walls of religious obnoxiousness

Walls of unquenchable thirst

A thirst for what?

Who knows?

It’s a blind pursuit

Let’s rush, run

Let’s pursue

What?

Who knows?

In your flattering bubble

Cushioned with phoney comforts

You bounce along

What are you after?

Who knows?

Who are you man?

Wangari...you live on!

A blue September

Gloomy

Deathly

Death making a call

Stealthily, like it’s his habit

Crept up

Picked the best

Wangari

You fought, you cried, you sweat

They ripped off your hair

They manhandled you

Forgot you are woman

Needed delicate handling

You fought on

Oh, how I remember how you fought

For Uhuru Park

You went it alone

Courageous like the woman you are

You fought …till the end

For Karura….you fought

For a single tree…you fought

For our environment…yes, you fought

The world is a better place

After you passed through it

You shall live on….

Your legacy shall live…

Iconic woman…

Heroine…

True mama….

Rest in Peace Wangari.

In the murk........

Coursing down the rivulet…it shines

Oil with a death wish

In the murky water

It flows in its shiny-evil dominance

They ignore its evil demeanour

They ooze it out of the murk

They see the shilling in it

The quick buck flowing in the murk

Only it knows better

As it deathly swirls further down

It reminds one of the death that coursed towards Egypt

To kill the first born sons

But this one flowing on water

Didn’t get too choosy

As it coursed down

It took the first, second…even the last son

The child of the son too

In murderous unison with fire

It scorched life out of them

Squeezed it out in a flash

Leaving skeletal forms

A statement of its viciousness

Their grotesque forms hurdled in the murk

Lived in murk

Walked in murk

Died in the murk

No dime in the murk

Just death!