My Brother Robert Poem by Job Ombati

My brother Robert
I mourn you my brother
Good to me you were during your day.
Now that night has come and you've retired;
what remains are watery wells that will empty and refill through the future.
When the heart will remember.

Mum's piercing cry rents the earth's blanket.
And the eager feet defy the night distillate to inquire.
One thing is clear; another son of the land has slept.
Only that this time it's you, my brother Robert.

My people always curse death.
'You keep taking as if they are so full! '
I mourn you my dear brother.

Inconsolable mother is.
The cry has turned into a heart wrenching mourn.
If you hear her, your stomach churns
She's tied a leso to her tummy and her arms are on her head.
They say that a child is a child though 38!
And that the umbilical cord still connects child to mother!
Oh my brother, you've killed mother.

As she keens, she grows old.
Her world stopped.
Though we may be many,
One less is no comfort.
You were her sunrise, she says.
What will happen now?

As they lower you into your lonely house,
where eternity will be your only companion.
And a mound of the sweet-smelling soil separates you from all those here,
The leso on mum's tummy is adjusted one hole tighter.
Her voice has returned.
But now hoarse.

They send 'omogisangio' to descend and turn an age mate.
A fistful of soil,
is her bye and 'fare-thee-well'.
The first thud on your wood mansion finally breaks her back.
Her cry rises to a crescendo