(a critique of the
rhetoric behind the colours of the Kenyan flag. To be read alongside Jerry Riley and Stephen Derwent Partington)
Painter: Your
colour is black.
Wanjiku: The
whole lot of us –
From
the brown Wataita;
Chocolate
Patels;
Yellow-yellow
Waswahili;
To
light as milk McIntyres?
Painter: McIntyre?
Patel? Kenyan?
Think
again. They were not born here.
Wanjiku: You
mean they can’t trace the exact burial spot
Of
their forebears six generations back? –
The way you can?
Painter: I won’t
argue with you.
Moving on, red.
Generous
swathes of crimson for the blood shed;
The
price of independence.
Wanjiku: But
that is so old! We have new stories to celebrate!
Painter: Old?
You must never forsake your past, carved out with machete and home-made gun.
Wanjiku: As if I
could, the way you rub it in my face.
Couldn’t
red also mean the passion;
The
fire forged every morning in Kibera, in Turkana
To make today a better day?
But since you will have blood,
Mention the violence in our homes
and our machines of death
decorating the highways
with shattered limbs and broken lives.
Painter: You feel
too much.
You
question too much.
You
believe too much.
Only
I have answers; only I know the future.
And
now to green:
O,
majestic mountains and pristine forests!
Wanjiku: Really;
where?
Green turned to grey while you
were sleeping.
City
skies, burning slums, and chemical rivers.
I’ll
take some brown for the desert cycles of flood and famine;
Tally
the poor who starve annually.
Put
our red-hot devotion to work; see the green return.
Painter: Your stubbornness
doesn’t move me.
I
must deliver the full lesson, as I was paid to do.
(God
knows I deserve a raise).
SIT
DOWN and listen!
White
is the gentle dove of peace dusting this nation
With
golden omens of prosperity.
Wanjiku (Yawning):
I could fall asleep from your bad poetry.
I
won’t let you infect me with your numbness.
(Walking
out) I will take white for the hope in our faces;
A
blank white slate handed
To
every citizen,
On
which to dream our identity.
I
might just paint the whole thing white,
Except,
white is just one colour.
Give
me nuance, give me tertiary colours,
Give
me love, give me a rainbow.
