Like her name
she’s a dear precious gem
pearly smooth as the ivory
adorning the callosal elephant that rumble
her birthplace, Makumu near Kisumu
smack-dab on the equator–
she was born there,

her blood pulses to the drums
of the Luhyia, Luo, Kisii, & Kikuyu–
–a girl of African soil
who once shaped its mud into dolls
sitting cross-legged speaking Swahili
with the children who were born...

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of course, a taste for the steal,
I mean, the tail just flew away

off mud and grass with loud coughing laughs
absconded a Kenyan thief,
fuzzy ringed flag
in its nozzle

sporting swifter than the
serval cat ever was

predatory indifference
taunted the dead nighttime hunter
propped up & tailless

here is what happened- a jammed bus
on 4 AM schedule careened
the hazy, dark, and trea...

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Is it possible to yearn for a place and time
solely for its colors?
Green is my favorite color
so familiar, but not in our old garden
Everything was an out-of-this-world green
looking out our backdoor in western Kenya
nothing could match the crackling vibrancy
of glowing full-blooded chlorophyll
it seemed too good to be true
Open the back door, imagine a valley
shrouded with luminou...

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