The River Remembers

I. Funeral in Nakuru
We buried you when the long rains had just broken.
Red soil stuck to our shoes.
No one told the river, but it lowered itself anyway.

II. What Remains
Your leso, folded.
Your recipe for ndengu, half-remembered, half-invented now.
My brother says you liked pears. I say you hated them.
We are both remembering a woman who learned to keep peace.

III. Rift
Light sits differently in the Valley —
wide, unapologetic. It does not know how to hide a grave.
At Lake Naivasha, I watched pelicans
and understood: they do not mourn the fish. They eat and fly.
Grief, maybe, is human pelican work — to keep going, beaks still wet.

IV. Inheritance
You left no will, only instructions:
"Do not quarrel about land. Quarrel about stories. Stories grow."

This 48-poem collection was written over eleven months between Nakuru and Glasgow, where the author now studies. Shortlisted for the African Poetry Prize 2024. With afterword on writing grief without exploiting it.