Before we forget

On Saturday I wrote about how my daughter was not at the supermarket in Nairobi where she buys groceries, and not at the cafe she occasionally visits and where so many lost their lives this past weekend.  The Nairobi violence-which has barely ended, with the dead still uncounted- has been replaced by a church bombing in Pakistan. One terrible encounter after another, unending sorrow. We become numb to it.

But before we completely forget about the massacre of civilians by Somali terrorists on a sunny Saturday afternoon in Nairobi, may I introduce to you Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor, 78 years old, who lost his life that day. He had been in Nairobi for a storyteller's conference. He is a face to remember.

Kofi Awoonor (March 13,1935-September 21, 2013) Poet and diplomat from Ghana

Here is an excerpt from one of Awoonor's last poems:

But who says our time is up
that the box maker and the digger
are in conference
or that the preachers have aired their robes
and the choir and the drummers
are in rehearsal?

No; where the worm eats
a grain grows.
the consultant deities
have measured the time
with long winded
arguments of eternity

And death, when he comes
to the door with his own
inimitable calling card
shall find a homestead
resurrected with laughter and dance

From “Promises of Hope: New and Selected Poems,” selected by Kofi Anyidoho, University of Nebraska Press and the African Poetry Book Fund, 2014

Rest in peace Kofi Awoonor.