Primus Priory - Jared Angira

My man is gone away to serve
                                        the Master
                                        his chief
At the set of the sun
                                        the pigeons
                                        and wagtails
                                        are homing
Lurking along the cold side
The black wall of euphorbia
                                        concrete
Down the valley I hear
                                        the shepherds call
The Wolves have howled
                                        from the hillside
                                        caves
The half-potent old men
                                        virility sailed away with time
                                        Minutes turned into years
The worn-out old men
                                        sing rustless epics
                                        from beer-party gospels:
                                        The golden flutes
I do not know, I do not know
I cannot tell, And I cannot tell
                                        When my Man will come
                                        When my Man will come
I must live these days alone
For my man must serve the Chief
The weaverbird should rest in her nest
And stir not the heat-burnt hope
For the fog is still absent
Let peasants cry into the dusk
The fields have partial answers
Children endlessly rock in the cradles
Shall I go to find My Mate?
Hunger shall never let me rest
The hours delve into years
Soon I shall have no tears to shed
No laughter to burst
I will not know
When first it started.

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Jared Angira (born 1947)  Kenya
Source: Poems from East Africa edited by David Cook and David Rubadiri, East African Publishers, 1996