Now close your eyes
And open your weary heart
Let me soothe away the woes
Of this fiendish world
As will the sun bathe the land
In its warming light
So shall the moon ascend
To guide the day to wane
In turn the rain to hush
The tumult of this world
And the wind to rise,
Sighing a lullaby in trees
And the pain, the truth, hidden in a Walden of our own passion
Not in these troubled times
Am I surely the one you pined for?
No, not into calmer waters
Am I the one you longed for?
I am but a scarecrow, an anathema to the world
Looking in from the outside
But it's time to turn my back
Walk off the beaten path
Seek heartening in my solitude
The arch of sky is roof where I call home
The drizzling of rain is the only music from now on
And my bed, made from juniper's boughs and threaded twigs
Of mire lest moss be my pillow
Lone footprints diverge from a crooked tree line
Autumn veils the sloughs with rime
A shell of quagmire
Too fragile to bear a man.

Njoroge Muchiri Jr. ©2019