The ache in our hearts that never seems to go away

Both picture above and poem below were originally posted by Martin Taylor in KFR!

This poem was written by a Rhodesian friend of mine and each time I read it, the claw of sadness tightens around my heart. I would like to share it with you because I am sure that many of you would relate to it as I do. It's called "Homeland".

Within my soul, within my mind,

There lies a place I cannot find.

Home of my heart. Land of my birth.

Smoke-coloured stone and flame-coloured earth.

Electric skies. Shivering heat.

Blood-red clay beneath my feet.

At night when finally alone,

I close my eyes - and I am home.

I kneel and touch the blood-warm sand

And feel the pulse beneath my hand

Of an ancient life too old to name,

In an ancient land too wild to tame.

How can I show you what I feel?

How can I make this essence real?

I search for words in dumb frustration

To try and form some explanation,

But how can heart and soul be caught

In one-dimensional written thought?

If love and longing are a "fire"

And man "consumed" by his desire,

Then this love is no simple flame

That mortal thought can hold or tame.

As deep within the earth's own core

The love of home burns evermore.

But what is home? I hear them say,

This never was yours anyway.

You have no birthright to this place,

Descendant from another race.

An immigrant? A pioneer?

You are no longer welcome here.

Whoever said that love made sense?

"I love" is an "imperfect" tense.

To love in vain has been man's fate

From history to the present date.

I have no grounds for dispensation,

I know I have no home or nation.

For just one moment in the night

I am complete, my soul takes flight.

For just one moment.... then it's gone

and I am once again undone.

Never complete. Never whole.

White Skin and an African soul.

Comments

MORE photos of cricketers in Kenya added

More cricket photos added! Asians v Europeans, v Tanganyika, v Uganda, v East Africa, Rhodesia, etc some names missing! Photo Gallery of Kenya Cricket 23 photos: CM Gracias, Blaise d'Cunha Johnny Lobo! Ramanbhai Patel, Mehboob Ali, Basharat Hassan and hundreds others.

Pinto: Blood on Western and Kenyan hands

BOOK REVIEW Pinto: Blood on Western and Kenyan hands Review by Cyprian Fernandes Pio Gama Pinto, Kenya’s Unsung Martyr 1927-1965 Edited by Shiraz Durrani [Vita Books, Kenya, 2018, 392 pp. Pbk, £30, ISBN 978-9966-1890-0-4; distributed worldwide by African Books Collective, www.africanbookscollective.com ] Less than two years after independence from the British, on 24 February 1965, the Kenyan nationalist Pio Gama Pinto was gunned down in the driveway of his Nairobi home. His young daughter watched helplessly in the back seat of the family car. Pinto, a Member of Parliament at the time, was Kenya’s first political martyr. One man was wrongly accused of his death, served several years in prison and was later released and compensated. Since then no one has been charged with the murder. Now the long-awaited book on Pio Gama Pinto is finally here, launched in Nairobi on 16 October 2018....

The sanctuaries trying to save birds of prey from extinction in Kenya

The sanctuaries trying to save birds of prey from extinction in Kenya (Courtesy of Al Jazeera) Poison, deforestation and power lines have pushed the African raptor population to a 90 per cent decline in the last 40 years. Raptor technician John Kyalo Mwanzia rehabilitates a juvenile fish eagle to flight after it was treated for grounding injuries sustained in a territorial fight at the Lake Naivasha habitat, at Soysambu Raptor Centre. [Tony Karumba/AFP] Simon Thomsett tentatively removes a pink bandage from the wing of an injured bateleur, a short-tailed eagle from the African savannah, where birds of prey are increasingly at risk of extinction. “There is still a long way to go before healing,” Thomsett explains as he lifts up the bird’s dark feathers and examines the injury. “It was injured in the Maasai Mara national park, but we don’t know how,” says the 62-year-old vet who runs the Soysambu Raptor Centre in central Kenya. The 18-month-old eagle, with a dist...

www.headlinesofmylife.today

Search This Blog