Our Bodies Remember
by Wangũi wa Kamonji

 

Come closer,

Talk to me about my body.

It aches nowadays with such strange pains.

I wonder, do these bodies know their ways

Any longer? And when will they remember?

Will the old scattered seeds sprout again?

What time does the class on memory start?

Can you tell me? I don’t want to be late.

Meanwhile, come. Let’s gather close.

This cold pushes knives through 

My still young bones. And my chest

Gets thick and heavy, though I carry on breathing.

Listen to the poem read out loud by the author

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Sprouts that grew from this seed

Wangũi wa Kamonji is a regeneration practitioner who researches and translates indigenous Afrikan knowledges and practices into experiential processes and art, to provide embodied tools for Afrikans to heal the colonial traumas of past and present, and (re)create ways to live regeneratively with themselves, Earth and ancestors again i.e., for us to decolonise and reindigenise.

Wangũi centres Afrika, ancestrality and the Earth in her storytelling. This pours forth in the form of short fiction, poetry, song, essays, and oral storytelling. Her children’s story “The Giraffes of the Desert” appears in the anthology “Story, Story, Story Come”. Her essays are published on Open Global Rights, Africa is a Country, The Elephant and Transitions Network. She integrates poetry into her non-fiction to trouble borders, and holds close Micere Mugo’s call to find the songs lying around us and sing them for all to hear. She is based in Ongata Rongai, East Afrika.