Fall of the Baobab

(For Ken Walibora Waliaula)

Wednesday morning and wild wails of your weary withering last Friday whack us
Better days are promised and premised on mornings
Why did this end with your crash?
The smell of death scares us to silence
The sound of it screeches in our ears
You've died at a time of death...

How soon you leave our scribes?
How fast our screens
How quick our stories?

You towered with teachings
Inscribed in essays and plays
Crafted Kiswahili into a collosal construct
Nuanced are your novels
Sharp and splendid your short stories
You live in your autobiography
Which happily you leave for biography

A giant you have fallen
Birds of the air we're crestfallen