Three Poems by JC Niala

A Life otherwise

after Jane Kenyon

Wazungu came
took my Kuka’s rights away.
There was no otherwise.

Demanded money and his sons
in exchange for a new God.
There was no otherwise.

Enforced new prayers,
medicine and made him wear
clothes. Cut out his tongue
yet he sang anyway.
There was no otherwise.

Changed the rules once
he learned how they worked.
There was no otherwise.

Until he made his own rules.
Bible in one hand and gun
in the other.
He showed them otherwise.

Wazungu – white men; Kuka - grandfather; ‘There is no otherwise’ – is a well-used Kenyan English expression

Exile

I must not feel at home
There
where you tell me
to go back from.

‘where was I confined?’

your not knowing
leaves your box
crafted for me
empty.

An unfinished bridge.

Don’t we all die anywhere?

Women shall inherit the earth

after Roger Robinson

If I speak of inheritance
then I am speaking of my great grandmother
who after my great grandfather died
refused to be inherited by his brother.
Who packed up her sons
and told them that women carry the land
in their womb and no man
takes that right, unless they give birth.
Who stared down tradition
said women were its scribe
and re-wrote it.

Omina – whose son
rode his bicycle across the red earth
to tell the boy’s school
they would teach his daughters.

Msungu – all of whose daughters
were impossible women
who rolled up the land
and carried it on their heads.

JC Niala writes poetry as a counterpoint to her academic research on urban gardening and African history. She has been published by The Poetry School, Peripheries and was longlisted/ highly commended by Nine Arches Press for Primers Volume Six.