Poem Without Name
There is no cheery chirping of weaverbirds
when long silver rays a new day’s sky split
in the land of no life.
There is no sunlight.
No sunrise is there.
There is no sunshine.
No sun is there.
There is an only silver crescent in smoky skies
that shines like a slice of a mirror in the sun
reflecting each human past
on each ray of its celestial blast.
No sunshine, no sun,
only a sliver of moon.
The crescent of silver
over the land of silence
reflects on lillions of lives lost
in the land of life.
WOOD OF THE MOON
I.
Udi al Kamari
Ubani wa mbalamwezi
Wood of the moon.
Smoke of the sweet tempting smell
stirs us up into starry-eyed stupors,
as it rushes down the highways inside our noses,
from Eastleighs to South Cs,
from Majengos to the Masjids,
along the long languorous lanes of the ancient isle of Lamu…
Aromatic incense of romance from the distant land of the Khmers...
Udi of the Moon, a civil scent among tropical trees.
II.
Udi el Kamari
Ubani wa mbalamwezi
Wood of the moon,
soft as the five petals of a pouting Zanzibari frangipani
seductive as the swish sound of a sleek, silky black buibui,
promising the hidden secrets of our earth.
From the neon-lit inside of Metro shuttle 6 and 9,
to the pimped up perfumeries littering Luthuli Avenue,
forbidden is the thought of its touch,
even as it tempts nostrils at the stroke of noon,
with fragrant trips to the highest tip on the moon-
this tropical scent from the civil udi el kamari....
III.
Udi el Kamari
Ubani wa mbalamwezi
Wood of the moon
dressed in the colour of a hundred henna
hidden always away from the searching eyes that smell it
beneath spotless white kanzus and spotless black buibuis.
Whenever our eyes the secretive smell sought,
we saw it nought.
Yet there it is when black buibuis glide by somewhere,
Yes when white kanzus in Muslim malls invite us inside some wares to buy....
Wood of the moon may be invisible maybe
but it’s truly a civil scent that sets our tropical eyes free.
IV.
Udi el Kamari
Ubani wa mbalamwezi
Wood of the moon,
soft of accent as a tune from a stanza of talatibu taarab,
hums to our ears and soft-beats our eardrums
surrounding our minds with whispers of unspoken thoughts.
Some thoughts are legal and others quite illegal….
Some thoughts become hot and in our minds riot,
as sirens of awakened senses speed across arteries
to bring order to the lawlessness emotions embrace
whenever the wood of the moon
plays the tunes of seduction on a drum of soft smells
from udi el kamari, the civil scent among tropical trees.
V.
Udi el Kamari
Ubani wa mbalamwezi
Wood of the moon
is to the nose as mint is to the tongue.
It tickles the lungs like a tingle to our taste buds.
It is the taste of rare wine served in a holy dream.
It intoxicates disciples of the Prophet.
It exhilarates disciples of the Christ.
It elates as do ancient chants of children of the Buddha.
It elevates as do ancient stanzas off chapters of the Vedas,
purifies human senses both common and the rest
from East to West, between and beyond….
Civil is the scent of the tropical wood of the moon,
ubani wa mbalamwezi, udi el kamari.
Glossary
Buibui – the typical black gowns of Muslim women Eastleigh – populous immigrant Muslim dominated low-economy suburb of Nairobi. Metro shuttles (Molowes/Matatus) number 6 and 9 commute between
city centre and Eastleigh.
Kanzu – the typical white gowns of Muslim men Luthuli Avenue – a bustling street that branches off Tom Mboya street – popular for its electronic shops owned by immigrant Somalis and other
Muslim citizens.
Majengo – seedy overpopulated Muslim-dominated neighbourhood Masjid – Mosque
South C – upmarket Muslim dominated suburb of Nairobi
Tom Mboya Street – the bustling central shopping district of Nairobi. Post Office is a populous bus terminus on the street. Buses to Eastleigh park there.
Udi – Aromatic burnt incense worn by women and men. It adorns houses and shops along the eastern African coast from Mogadishu to Maputo. It is a bourgeois nasal motif of Muslim life in Eastern Africa (and Arabia). It attracts the attention of one who smells it but forbids overt expression of such attraction. Udi invites and forbids at the same time. As a liminal symbol in Muslim life, it articulates daily paradoxes and ambiguities of arabicised lifestyles based on the five pillars of Islam. Brought to
eastern Africa by the Omani Arabs, Udi today shares with Kiswahili and Taarab the honour of being the central cultural feature that accentuates East Africa’s cultural difference as a region of the vast continent of Africa. See also novels of Abdulrazak Gurnah and Nuruddin Farah.
JKS Makokha is the Kenyan author of Reading M. G. Vassanji: A Contextual Approach to Asian African Fiction (2009). He teaches courses in African and South Asian Literatures at the Institut für Englische Philologie at the Freie Universität in Berlin, Germany. His poetry appears regularly on African Writing, an online journal of creative writing.
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