Broken Diamonds

(In memory of the Nairobi bomb blast: Friday, 7th August, 1998. I wrote this poem on Saturday, 22nd August, 1998 at 4 pm)

I picked ‘Broken Diamonds’ as the title of this poem as a token of appreciation of the lives of the people who perished. They were diamonds, to say the least. And, of course, there’s a lot of pain in losing a diamond, isn’t there?

They were born,
On a day in the past,
And lived their lives,
Till that fateful day,
Seventh of August.

The scene was aghast,
After the blast,
The blast that claimed them,
And what a mayhem it caused.

The glasses flew,
As if they knew,
Where they were going;
They cut deep in the skin,
And the memory,
Remains deeply etched in our hearts.

‘Can’t imagine,
That those people,
So beautiful, so handsome,
So young, so old,
Will never again,
Share a light joke with bus,
I simply can’t imagine.

Children were left crying,
Mothers and fathers the same,
After they were left,
Without a bye,
By people who knew less,
Of where they were going;
And made that journey,
Very unprepared,
For they weren’t spared.

My heart is paining,
At such senseless,
Loss of precious lives,
Which were nipped in the bud,
Before they were ripe enough,
To be swallowed by the soil.

Seventh of August,
Will always (and forever),
Be remembered by all Kenyans,
Young and old,
Born and unborn,
As the day,
When the world,
Came tumbling down on us.

The blasts of the bomb,
Will always ring out,
Throughout Kenya,
For ages to come,
For they left memories,
Which are more than stories.

Charred stumps,
Dot the hollowness in our hearts;
Smouldering embers,
Keep our latent emotions alive.