Niyi Osundare and Ngugi Wa Thiong’o

By Niyi Osundare

In the eloquent water of the River Between

Minnows argue the terror of the shark

Rifted mountains hold hands

Across a vast and breathless silence

A soil unspeakably rich:

Red-rooted vegetables beckon from roadside stalls

A corn-covered distance connects my eye

To a yearning horizon

Bleating sheep romp in temperate coats

Unmindful of donkeys trotting under

Their missionary burdens, trailed by tough-limbed

Peasants sobered by the vagaries of the market

Voices and echoes

Across rifted silences

Echoes and voices

Of half-told stories and syncopated songs:

Of the grain of wheat

Which feeds succeeding seasons,

The long, sweat-soaked journey

From grass to bread…

     In a house

Somewhere there in Kamiriithu

A story-teller was born

Whose tales traverse the world

*This tribute first appeared in “Flowers of the Rift Valley”, a section on Kenya in my book, If Only the Road Could Talk: Poetic Peregrinations in Africa, Asia, and Europe, published in 2017.