RAINDROPS AND TEARDROPS

…natuo tuhiu tuthece matu…tuthece matu!

Namo matu makoiria mbura makoiria mbura…

He sat lotus like on the dark coloured mat. A mat made of the finest Nubian skin harvested in the days of the siege of Juba. Naked he was, his skin glistening even under the crouching darkness of the witching hour.

I stood, my sheepskin loin cloth in stark contrast with my patent leather ‘Gikomba Deluxe’ shoes and unmatched socks. My forefather’s spirit beckoned from the other side; but as always I held back. My feet shod in modernity. The modernity that is the gravitational pull that keeps me grounded in the terra firma of present day realities- realities of science and foreign gods. But a time comes for me when ying has to met yang; when the souls of the departed twine with those of the living; a time for the past to find harmony with the present; a time for necromancy

The cock crowed once. It was the cock as the mundu mugo had said, “of one body”. It crowed twice. A pure white cock it was, a cock that was as THEY say, as white as snow. The cock crowed thrice. I bit of its head.

I raised my face to Mount Kenya… Thai Thathaiya Ngai!

Potash Wept

Potash wept for the famine stricken land. For millions that were staved. It was the season of the long rains again. We had to have it this time. If it rains, grass will grow.

…nayo nyeki ikarera njau ikarera njau…

Let it rain! Let it rain!

Teardrops in my eyes, right before the raindrops. Yes raindrops. Manna is, ‘What is it?’ Manna is raindrops on parched earth. The heavens opened to wash away my tears. I opened my moutho- no, I spat out the chicken head first- and was filled. Filled with the green house gas flavoured drops of rain.

….Mbura ura, nguthinjire, gategwa…kari iguku!

The rain filled my mouth and mixed with the blood. The blood of a cock that died that the grass may be saved and have an ever-green life. The cock that has seen too many incarnations since Abraham’s Isaac lived to tell his tale. A cock whose fate sealed the moment God began demanding protection money in the form of firstborn sons or the substitutionary Atonement equivalent in lieu. A cock that has often times been a lamb- or referred to as that; remember Christ crucified? “We want Barrabas!” He died that the felon may live. How great to have another die for you. How humanity, and its gods, demands blood for it covenants. The blood, as Edgar Poe says, is the avatar and the seal.

The blood of the gods is quenched. The rains are here. It doesn’t rain they say, it pours. In Budalangi, Kano plains; they know it all. The rains wash away famine from our headlines and replace it with floods. If it doesn’t rain we die, if it rains we die. Oh misery mine..

…Rain rain go away..

come along another day…

When will ever move to higher ground? A higher state of logic that will allow us not to live as slaves to the elements. I mean, it is already bad enough being slaves to the neo-colonialists and purveyors of dog food…

Maybe someday the rain will not bring tears. Maybe someday the lack of rain will not bring tears. Maybe someday the Government will not bring tears. But up until that day, I am stuck with putting out my begging bowl, for famine relief, by day and biting on chicken heads by night in orgies with necromancers- Looking for a Rain God!