Talk Of Being Keen Poem by Job Ombati

How keen are you?
Red keen
or just keen?
Keen to claim what's yours
or beg for a birth right—
long withheld?

Rivers have brains
and lakes a mem'ry—
to claim what's rightfully theirs;
to retrace old boundaries and redraw new maps,
Begging no one
for it.

Be foolish—
as one politician was:
'Let's demarcate and build! '
'We'll relocate the damn river! '—
Twas the beginning
and end of all foolishness.

When it's due,
rivers and lakes refuse to take
anyone's shit.

Lake Nakuru
can't take it any longer.
River Tana won't.
Lake Bogoria threatens to deliver
a deadly kiss
to Lake Baringo.

People must move.

© Poems for Humanity
[Saturday,24 July 2026: 5: 25 pm - Nakuru]``````