Excerpt from Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
Lace not an olive branch
With venom and poison
Lace it not
With the spit of words
Unkind and haughty
Lace it not
With foul breath
Ferrying untruths and hubris
Lace it not with the sound
Of ignorance and conceit
It is an olive branch
The vastness of the trove bewilders
The enormity of the sea confuses
The multiplicity of tasks
Breathing, and cleaning, and refining, and swimming
The oodles disorient
Where did they go
The days of lonesome bliss
When solitude was a priced jewel
Sought after with the yen of a thirsty deer
Looked forward to with the eagerness of a hound
When focus on goals
Impelled self-isolation
When the paradise of empty spaces
The serenity of loneliness
And the company of the self
Were akin to a masseuse’s therapy
To a body sore and sapped
Where are the days of meaning
A swallowing
A disappearance
Like of some prey into the insides of the predator
Or of a needle into a bale of hay
It’s the image my mind conjured
The persistent one that still materializes
Whenever I picture a journey into the city
The governor seems to harbor dictatorial attitudes to say the least. The vexatious nature of this possibility notwithstanding, it is less likely that her despotism may sink her and more probable that her unwise execution of it will. If a cow wishes to drink from a crocodile-infested river, it has no option but to be sneaky about quenching its thirst. The governor must surely know that while her predecessor’s self-christening as a crocodile was a strategy to scare the faint-hearted and allude to his supposed mettle, the political waters in which she now swims are ever teeming with the menacing reptiles. With Munya’s announcement that he’s going back to county politics and Kawira’s fallout with county legislators, the county boss’ goose might just be cooked. Perhaps it is not too late for her to revise her approach and try to repair the burned bridges though. Unlike her predecessor’s dethronement, hers will neither be shocking nor unexpected if she does not act quickly and astutely.
We know the West has tried to regain its foothold in the country after realizing it “lost” us to the East. Could Ruto’s reconsiderations about GMOs have been occasioned by the pressure from Uncle Sam? If that is what the president is giving in to, he must be told he is on the wrong track. He risks driving us into a ditch. If the move is not informed by his own advice of back when he was the Minister for Agriculture, Ruto needs to be cautioned. If he does not retrace his steps, it is this scientific matter that will be the undoing of this scientist president. Hot on the heels of economic issues’ undoing of an economist president, this will be disastrous for Kenya.
Wine
Crackling fire
Music
You
The night gets on
Time stops not
But you
You gotta stop
Just for the night
Line ’em thoughts
Of the empty full house
The empty busy street
Creation’s unfathomable grandeur
Line ’em thoughts with the crackle of the fire, the music, the wine
Revere
Do we have to completely do away with the one and wholly adopt the other? Isn’t it worth considering what’s good in both the old 8-4-4 and the new CBC as well as what may present challenges implementing, and then working out a compromise? The antagonistic stances the proponents and opponents hold suggest that CBC and 8-4-4 are mutually exclusive. That CBC can only be achieved within a 2-6-3-3-3 curriculum. This is fallacious.
The hand has the itch on a leash!
From her cup of knowledge
I drunk
Her steady, inspiring guidance as my walking stick
I trudged
By the lampstand of her tender, loving firmness
I learnt
On her nourishing foresight and insight
I throve
Out of the trenches of unknowing
She pulled me
The Caged Bird Sings 