we have lost
147+ 1 lives
147+1 names
not just bodies
147+1 visions
not just numbers
147+1 futures
not just citizens
147+1 is the number of your burden today
kenya

can you hear the voices and screams and tears and SOSs?
STILL
- is this time of mourning

you failed us
words failed us

like a cartographer
you have drawn in bloody hands
a map of tragedy
from time to time
isiolo 1963
garissa 1980
wagalla 1984
garissa 2015
- once again
yesterday
today

again history didn’t match with hope
like a cartographer you now
want to wash up the stained line
upon your soil
re-shape the landscape
building walls to separate
lock our people in stadiums
arming your body
in war outfit

you’ve left the metastasis grow inside you
shattered our dreams to an obscene betrayal
instead of embracing,
instead of choosing the inclusiveness of
-EMPATHY
we are dull
the pain haunts us
once again
today
like yesterday

the road to garissa is stained
the tana river has left this land loaded with
blood and tears
once again
today like yesterday
147+1
peter
veronica
dan
priscilla
ruth
joy
isaac
147+1 lives
solomon
oliver
maria
ivy
jane
Jeff
147+1 names
not just bodies
selpher
susan
tracy
tobias
hellen
mwende
147+1 visions
not just numbers
yvonne
elizabeth
doreen
angela
ayub
branton
abdulrazak
alex
147+1 futures
not just citizens
eliud
tony
faith
….
….
…
…
…

in dreadful absence and loss
we uphold our values
and dismiss to fall a part

Garissa – Kenya 2015
Valentina A. Mmaka, writer and human rights activist
www.valentinammaka.com