Celebrated Ghanian poet Kofi Awoonor, aged 78, was one of the 59 people killed in the Al Shabab terrorist attack at the Westgate shopping center in Nairobi, Kenya. More than 100 people were injured in the attacks.
My colleague Wei Wei Hsing shared Awoonor’s poem Rediscovery.
Rediscovery (1964)
When our tears are dry on the shore
and the fishermen carry their nets home
and the seagulls return to bird island
and the laughter of the children recedes at night
there shall still linger the communion we forged
the feast of oneness whose ritual we partook of
There shall still be the eternal gateman
who will close the cemetery doors
and send the late mourners away
It cannot be the music we heard that night
that still lingers in the chambers of memory
It is the new chorus of our forgotten comrades
and the halleluyahs of our second selves
The poem can be found in A New Book of African Verse.