This poem, Freeing the Spirits, was first broadcast on America’s National Public Radio (NPR) in January 2009 to mark our Cousin Barry’s inauguration as President of the United States.
It’s reproduced here with the permission of yours truly, who asserts the moral right as its author: If I knew I would live
to tell this story
I would have brought you
platefuls of kuon and ngege –
fresh as the waters of Nam Lolwe.
And counsel the wisdom of
washing your hands with spittle
while living by the lakeside.
I hear the lake now bears the
name of a foreign queen
and you are the king
of a faraway land
eating with forks and knives
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but won’t touch kuon and ngege
because somebody warns against
tropical diseases.
If I knew I would live to tell this story
I would have smeared
your face with shea butter
and hang cowrie shells on your long neck
to keep off evil spirits.
I know you are a free spirit
ruling the Free World
freeing the spirits of your
ancestors in Nam Lolwe
and all the oceans that they crossed shackled. So I shall eat kuon and gueno to celebrate.
But I am sad to eat without you.