• ashirk@gmail.com
  • Kijabe, Kenya
Kenya
on dragon drops. . .

on dragon drops. . .

David wrote this poem on Sunday morning after a downpour – I gasped when I saw the photos of the dew drops sparkling on the petals – this is what dragon skin looks like in the imagination. These moments, piled up, hit us with tidal waves of gratitude -ari.

never, no never

The morning air is a clean, smooth blanket 
smelling of ozone and earth.

Buddy sniffs every blade of grass
bent beneath the wet weight of droplets,
digs for termites,
revels in newness.

Sunlight glints off the field like
ten thousand diamonds

Emily Dickinson is no liar,
her grass “threads the dews all night,
like pearls, And make itself so fine, — 
A duchess were too common
For such a noticing.”

Today royalty is beneath my feet,
bouncing in the breeze.

Nobility is equality of all things,
priesthood of all believers,
kingdom of all life and all breath.

Monkeys scurry through trees,
leap branch to branch across the span of the dirt road,
playing a never ending game of hot-lava
as if they touch the ground, they would be burned.

But there is no fire, 
only fresh-washed red dirt, 
burning in the morning sun,
culverts filled with the topsoil runoff displaced by last night’s downpour.

Footprints in the soft earth betray secret passers of the night.

The Obengos wave hello
as they walk to church,
dressed in red, brilliant as the field,
smiles radiant as the morning sun.

A young man walks the road too, 
bouncing and singing his journey up from the old town, 
spring in his step
moved by the music radiating from his phone 
and from his chest.

I harness the dog,
wake the girls,
take a camera,
head for the garden
knowing we’ll be late for church, 
but knowing also 
the shimmering pearls adorning the morning world
will burn away before our return.

Maybe in these few minutes, 
inhaling the wonder of creation, 
chorus of birds above my head, 
is a truer call to worship than any sung by a human choir. . .

What is fifteen minutes, when I am surrounded by eternity?

Which sermon will I best remember?

If I look close enough, 
through the water droplets, 
the fingerprints of flowers are visible.

Flowers have fingerprints!

Who knew?

Someone did.

Why am I still surprised
to discover unknown worlds, 
not on mountaintops or beneath the sea, 
but all around me, even inside me?

Will wonders ever cease, I wonder?

The answer is clear as the morning air:

Never, as long as the sun burns and the rain falls,
Never, as long as eyes see and birds call
Never, as long as Kenya is crisscrossed by red dirt roads
Never, as long the journey song rumbles in a young man’s throat,

Never, no never,
No never,
No never

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