Remembering Wangari
‘Just before the stars sing, just before the childish wave wanes/You will plant another seed in the distance, another tree, another universe gained.’ Bayo Akomolafe remembers Wangari Maathai.
Just a sigh of sacred silence, a poem, to share with you as a soul not deserved finds new terrain and walks on into a new forest - one undisturbed by the sick profiteering and plundering of our land, our agency, our identity, our sacred worlds and our futures:
Just as the earth readies to shake off her pestilent fleas
Gaia besieged by restless profiting, this capitalist disease
Your trembling hands gathered to yourself a single seed
A tear shed, a prayer said, a reversal of greed
May Her dusty wounds you healed find you a home, another tree
Take root, walk on with feet unshod, dear Maathai Wangari
Do not 'rest in peace' as do the obedient ones before you
May your irreverence continue beyond divine shores, across a sky blue
And these subversive drumbeats will echo across mortal plains
Transgressing our pity and disturbing our complacent pains
Teach us to tell our stories even when they put our fires out
Teach us to dance on in madness when melodies no longer sprout
One day, we all will dance on green-cloaked mountains
Embraced by our mother we so long have disdained
Just before the stars sing, just before the childish wave wanes
You will plant another seed in the distance, another tree, another universe gained.
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