Martin- Grace Mangi

Cover him over with daisies white And eke with poppies red, Sit with me here by his couch to-night, For the First-born, Love, is dead.
From death of a first born By Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Unbury his body from the dark waters of the gutters Give him a hand, out of the gutter With open arms, receive him into yours even though, He smells like unwashed urinals near a slaughter house or, Like the gutters of Limuru, full with filth to the brim. Lift him up , take him home.
He is Martin after all Martin is like Luther after all He wasn’t forever going to be , The one who got away, the one who slipped away into, The mystery of life nearing death, Into the suffocating smelly gutters of Limuru. Martin is Luther after all! Prepare a wide table and a long bath, For the First-born, is back.
Martin is back from the gutters
He sits by the window in his room Quiet and still like the little potted cactus on the sill Probably lost in introspection Not a trace of regret or fear On his now clean-shaven face He knows it’s over, _ the race Of life survival or extinction.
Freedom and hope for now Forget the freedom, Of dark deathly consuming loneliness He has found peace and freedom Rare states of mind in the gutter kingdom Martin, a name well chosen to fit perfectly, Martin Luther King reincarnate!
Martin is back from the lonesome abyss beneath the gutters Martin is back to being, the liberator, the dreamer, the leader And dauntless soul he was meant to be With a deep rooted conviction, that he’s finally , Out of the gutters! Now in a world of blue skies and green fields His whole being, death is speaks not Instead he; Sends off a vibrant aura like pristine mama nature does Butterflies fleet about him and now he smells of a tea farm Like the scent that comes with the first drops of rainfall on dry earth Like the scent of pine, eucalyptus, rain on green grass
Like life itself…