My subconscious
leaks out a past
I have long buried
marching under
drenching rain
draining heat
heavy escort
fenced in on every side
by howling, vicious guards
at the crack of dawn
miles from home
an unbroken file of men and women,
boys and girls
heading north
to Kirinyaga Forest trench
White-washed
in colonial propaganda
loyalised
venomed
against blood-brothers
a raving guard
slashes at Mumbi
as she halts
to shift her bundle
from shoulder to breast
“In the name of Ngai
I beg you bwana,
spare my child!” she cries
On the slopes of the sacred mountain –
Ngai sanctuary –
his children bend
low
slaving
hungry
weather beaten
crushed with blows
digging day-long
a grave
a trap
for brothers
in the forest
A twenty-foot gulf
separates
blood from blood
grinning to expose
rows of spikes
that lie waiting
to crucify
him who dares plan
a reunion.
Curfew starts at sunset
away back in the trench
journeying back in the dark
cries of hungry children
tear mothers’ hearts
while fathers
-castrated-
tamely listen
and gaze at their toes.
Survivors arrive
at midnight
at first cock-crow
the pot leaves the fire
at third cock-crow
the daily March
again begins…
Under the sweat of
today’s labour
we forgive the past
impossible to forget.
*
Micere Githae Mugo is a woman of many firsts. Born in 1942, she attended Alliance Girls’ High School before training as a teacher at Makerere University. Micere received her Master’s degree and PhD from the University of Brunswick and University of Toronto respectively. In 1980, she was elected Dean of the Faculty of Arts at UoN and became Kenya’s first female dean faculty. Her writivism and dedication to truth had her exiled from the country in 1982 and striped of her Kenyan citizenship. Micere lived and worked in Zimbabwe until 1993 when she moved to the US.
For her contributions to the field of African literature, Micere Mugo was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award by London’s Royal African Society in 2021.