Nairobi Duet

Rain on the Tracks

The yard outside the station's vast and bleak
with puddles in the potholes. Pouring rain
obscures the coloured buses from our view –
they're merely blurs of blue and red and green
that sit along the kerb and bide their time
till their drenched passengers, squeezed in, have formed
one block of dull exasperation, cold
and tired from waiting for their bus to go
and see them home down lengths of half-paved roads,
and a few better ones, along whose sides
less fortunate ones walk the thick, red mud,
the dogged mud that links Moi Avenue,
Uhuhu Highway and Muranga Road
to poor Mathare Valley, green Ngong Hills,
red water running down the drains and rills.

Steam Train Graveyard

Dust comes in clouds as the slow train pulls out
of the old station and the hawkers' cries
are fading down the crowded platform. Here
one sees trains have grown scarce. Road transport's left
an eerie silence on the shunting range
where once was bustle. Now the signal's stuck
and in the shed there's no more smell of oil
and coffee. Dust's come down upon the big,
black handles and a film of gritty rust's
upon the rails. A little further down
the old, strong locs sit rusting in the sun,
old force now decomposing. Their mere bulk
retains their former pride, their mighty shapes
and sturdy structures unaffected. Time
eventually will prove the stronger, yet
it won't succeed in driving from my mind
this silent beauty on discarded lines
that this slow journey's wonder leaves behind.