These could not be Noah’s ravens, these crows
of Mikuyu Prison groaning on our roof-tops each
day; wherever they wandered after their bungled
pilgrimages in the aftermath of those timeless
floods, Noah’s ravens could not have landed
here (they never returned to their master’s ark).
These could not be Elijah’s ravens either; for
however stubbornly this nation might challenge
Lord Almighty’s frogs, these devouring locusts,
the endless droughts and plagues, today there’s
no prophet God so loves as to want to rescue
(with the bread and meat from messenger ravens!).
These can only be from that heathen stock of
famished crows and carrion vultures sent here
to peck at our insomnia and agony-blood-eyes
and to club the peace of this desert cell with
their tough knocking beaks. And why don’t they
choose some other place and some other time?
Why must these crows happen at Mikuyu Prison,
always at dawn, hammering at the corrugated
iron of this cell, drilling at the marrow of our
fragile bones and picking at the fishbones
thieved from the dustbins we ditched outside?
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