ROADSIDE RIVER
Pouncing upon iron roof
It’s the friend who descends at dawn
Like the enemy whose face we never truly know
He seeps. pours. fills.
In rage he heaves and sweeps;
Taking our survival with him.
We shield ourselves from Nairobi storm…
It’s been dry, you see
Drought dried our eyes
Now heaven cries for us.
Across the road lies our dream.
He sneaks in —
Flooding the ground, our feet, our knees
Day sky turns to night with eerie ease
I can only watch
As half of home is washed clean
This time each year
We a trained anew- how to ignore
A broken sewer system
River in living room
The cross some must bare…
The rains are here again- to feed starving seeds
This time they ‘over-feed’ us
We will build home again, you see
And once the sun returns,
prepare to repeat.
Barely anything gets fixed here
But maybe - it’s more than a ‘thing’
Human souls break too
Some from blindness
Some- from seeing too much to bear.
~NM
