Unbowed

On a normal day
On a normal afternoon
In a topnotch hotel
A pang of strange premonition fills the air
And in the carnival mood that was getting merrier every hour,
A loud explosion is heard, followed by a ring of gunfire
And in the briefest of seconds,
Flames and plumes of black smoke are seen billowing into the overcast sky
The enemy is back,
Back to campaign
Campaigning for gloom and despondency in the country
Campaigning for superstition and bewilderment
A bird’s eye view sees nothing but something akin to rapture
All these gave birth to an infant ruckus
And some heads are seen spinning incessantly and in turmoil!
Some are seen scattering helter skelter
Those in the hotel are huddled stoically in bathrooms and wardrobes
As some are camouflaged in curtains!

Wrinkled faces, unsmiling and as ugly as sin, are seen approaching,
Armed to the tooth
Shooting at anyone and anything
Their course is to create a recessive schism and angst
A schism between Muslims and non-Muslims
A schism between Kenya and her ideals of love, peace and unity
A schism between Kenyans and courage
Little do they know that they are going to fail,
Fail like a brief dream of unremaining glory
Fail like an unreplenished stream
Fail like the trances of the summer air
They’ll fail like they did with the Westgate mall!
Right now she’s standing tall, smiling and welcoming them back
Welcoming them not for a glass of acid, but a glass of wine

As a whimper fills the air,
Kenyans are fuming
Fuming with flaring nostrils and eyes glittering with anger
And in a sotto voce we are saying,
‘This is Kenya. And we are forever unbowed to junior nobodies’
We are going to canalize our anger to the mountains
And build more and more skyscrapers
May they obliterate them all if they can
Our abhor will not be directed to each other, but rather to the enemies of progress
We will not recoil to fear but rather we,
Are going to stand tall and fight till the end
We may have failed in the past but now, we are working
Working hard to close the loopholes so that the foe won’t come through
Working hard on our course
The enemy may have caused a twinge in our conscience
They may have caused a conflict of emotions in our hearts
But our course is still on
As they kill and destroy,
We are going to carry each other
We will love each other like a mother
We will find each other in those wreckages even as tears will be spilling hotness down our cheeks
We will do all these because we,
Are Kenyans
And we,
Are forever unbowed!!

By Jamin Clement

I wrote this poem with a dam welling up in my eyes as a result of the most recent terror group attack, Al-shabaab,  on our Kenyan soil. Lives were lost and the best way I could encourage my fellow citizens and countrymen was through writing a poem. I’m Jamin Clement, a storyteller and a poet.

Blog : j4min.wordpress.com

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