My ancestral gods!

If you truly created muntu,

If you truly want me,

to lend mine umbrella ears to you.

If you’re really wonderful and good,

If you truly want me,

to slaughter a bull sacrifice for you.

If you really provide curd for my lame ewe,

If you truly want me,

To worship thee omnipotent one,

Then do these my pitiful god;

Make the sun to shine during the moonless nights,

so that the night runners cease disturbing me,

Make my bearded he-goat a gorgeous donkey,

so that I won’t trek to Daraja Mbili market,

Make our phlegmatic village chief a castrated bull,

to be gored in the upcoming bullfight,

Make my neighbor Mochama’s daughter gorgeous,

a moon goddess for me to revere,

Make my corrugated barns magnificent palaces,

for me to cohabit with my dozen of wives in.

If only you did these my pious gods,

If you granted my wishes,

I’ll listen to your beakering,

under the mugumo tree,

I’ll sacrifice unto you my only beloved calf,

in the sacred caves,

I’ll vehemently pray unto you forever,

on the peaks of Manga hills,

If my amiable wishes grew like amatoke,

I'll make a humongous plantation,
And the offing I would give,

Wholly unto you as offering.

If my amicable wants flew like scarlet red doves,

To my broken wooden window,

I'd offer my first born to you,

To mould as your priest in your shrines,

If only you granted my humble requests,

I would do this and much more!

On facebook: Baraka Lines.

Oh! My ancestral gods!

WHY I WRITE

My literary ambitions are mixed up with feelings of being isolated and undervalued. I know I have a facility for words and a power of facing unpleasant facts and situations, and I feel that I’ve created some sort of private life in literature in which I can get my own back for my failures, especially academically, in my everyday life. I do not only report to others but also to myself first and foremost. I like the communication aspect of writing since it gives me a ‘somewhat’ safe platform to question the authority, societal rules, culture and identity. I write not only to find a way into the world but also to hold it away from me so that sheer, senseless events would not devour me. I usually feel this powerful adrenaline rush and if I am in bed, I jump out and reach for my ever present pen, a paper and my old flashlight in order to pen down my sentiments. As most writers have sagely implied, during that compulsive state of inspiration, I replica a pregnant woman in labour pa...

Love

What is love? We all do ask,right? Here I try to break down a few ideologies about this feeling! Love is about bottomless empathy, born out of the heart’s revelation that another person is every bit as real as you are. And this is why love, as I understand it, is always specific. Trying to love all of humanity may be a worthy endeavor, but, in a funny way, it keeps the focus on the self, on the self’s own moral or spiritual well-being. Whereas, to love a specific person, and to identify with his or her struggles and joys as if they were your own, you have to surrender some of your self. The big risk here, of course, is rejection. We can all handle being disliked now and then, because there’s such an infinitely big pool of potential likers. But to expose your whole self, not just the likable surface, and to have it rejected, can be catastrophically painful. The prospect of pain generally, the pain of loss, of breakup, of death, is what makes it so tempting to avoid love and stay s...

An epistle to Africa

Lately I learnt power and strength are not the solution or answer to some vital and crucial situations. This was practically juxtaposed because I was the victim. This morning, I went to the bush to cut SOMETHING, I used my strength and power to cut one particular small tree but it was just returning my cutlass back to me like it fortified itself against my sharp cutlass. I got furious and added more strength, I discovered I was just wasting time. Then I came back to my senses because I was already feeling the pains in my hand. I decided to cut it slowly and steady and I discovered my cutlass gave it a perfect and good mark. I repeated that thrice and the tree was already down on the floor. I was so astonished at how everything happened like I was on a trance. This is just how some of our lives are patterned. We want to use strength and power to get or achieve everything, forgetting that wisdom and knowledge is the principal everything. If mosquito has ever...

Baraka Lines

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