Cucu and I would take trips,
To see, The Animal Orphanage,
“Nairobi is cold.” She would say to me.
Still, I would beg, for those bright red,
Red Devil ice lollies, that would paint my lips red.
We would watch lion cubs,
Stretch and stick out their tongues,
They looked like teddies.
 

Mama would take me to Forty Thieves,
There was this fallen tree on the beach,
We as kids, would run down,
sunny, sand dusted stairs to reach
and compete for who could climb it first,
and get to the branch, that thrust up, and out.
So we could swing from it,
Or stand on it and sing from it;
 

“I’m the King of the Castle,
You’re the dirty rascle!
Nyenyenye Boooooboooo!”
 

It’s ironic how, even then,
We stood atop fallen pieces of
mother earth, to pretend Lord
over each other.
 

I visited again, in my teens,
The tree, then sunk beneath
sand, so the castle branch
was so low, I could sit on it.
The stairs were buried too.
The last time I visited,
Just the tip of that swinging branch,
Peeked
At a Forty Thieves
that is now half the size.
The sea and sand having
Claimed back property.
 

‘Daddy took me snorkelling!
In Tiwi Beach!’
And we would see kaleidoscope
Coral reef, with uncountable multi-coloured fish
Darting between
Their rippled surfaces.
We visited again, him, my brother, my sister and I,
last year. All we could do was
watch out for sea urchins.
 

As adults, we clamber,
With the Kings of the earth
Pumping the most fumes above us,
No filter,
Streaming live threads and trends,
as we ‘forget’ not to litter.
Besides us, little footprints patter,
Licking lollies, and dropping
Wrappers.
 

My daughter is starting to walk.
I wonder,
How will I explain, hurricane,
Katrina to her, once it’s happened again
and again.
While we are yet to stop making the same mistakes?
 

I will tell my grand children,
Stories of Giants, who had
giant teeth, we called tusks,
Big enough to carry three children on.
They will laugh.
But I will not find it funny
Because although I’ll love to see them smile,
They will find my stories senile,
For dwelling on historical times,
When Rhinos existed in real life.
 

I will tell them about a fallen
tree, that by then, sits sunk and
salty, decomposing.
Possibly along with the Neem,
And taller trees, that hold up
Ladder bridges for the Colobus monkeys
Safe passage across Diani’s main street.
 

Our mother earth is not human,
Were she person, she would
Be buried already.
Under the weight of
her selfish children.
That said,
It is finite, what she can take.
While we errect gardenless mansions on her riverbeds
and look on benevolent, as
entire islands are under threat
of the clear indications
that we are pushing hard
for her boughs to break.
 

Truth be told, to be mother,
Is a thing of beauty.
We don’t have to make her
look haggard, then
fault
her continuity.
And there is hope, in here,
Everywhere I look.
 

If all the wold needs, is
For us to make the right decisions
In rooms like these.
Then we are here
To save the sea
From emissions,
To save the land
From the sea.
 

Because it should be more,
than a dream,
That our great great great
Grandchildren
Get to be
On an Earth, that is still
 

Beautiful.

As She Should Be.