-Today i rem my grand-mother, as she attempts
to connect with his 2nd children..

-She finds the only english word she knows, from
somewhere hidden in the belly of her "thingira"

-She greets us "bye bye" beckoning me into her
thin clay coloured hands.

-Those arms mothered my mother, taught her to
mother me, i inhale the history from her skin
and tells me the tales of a scared boy,caged
in an iron bird on his way to America.

-Seems that bird has returned only to replace
that scared boy with me, the strange tongue
tied boy, the one who can barely say hallo
without tones,dips or moans of the white man's
language.

-It breaks my heart to realize i can only love
her in english for this is not my only tongue.

- Que vais-je apprendre à mes enfants,
Que vais-je apprendre à mes enfants, WHAT
will i teach my children? when will tell them
where i have been? the earth that shaped me,
the hands that held me, what will the call
home?

-Will they hear it, if it calls them, London,
Paris, NYC, will not help them remember,
"rugiri", "bebe", "thaara"

-I will not help forget fingers filled with
"gima" full of holes, i have lost the grit and
grain of my grand-mothers "githeri"

-I can't taste paste nolstagic lump in my
throat,I can't stomach the reality of my
divided culture, African, British - am
everything, am nothing.

-Kenya is begging me quietly to remember, while
Britain is slowly urging me to forget.

-But it's from my past, my future and it's you
my grand-mother i must always remember!!