Gautam Naik
Turkana boy
You are now distilled in glass and look so
Frightened: rude nails have pinned you
To crumpled velvet, a shattered arm trails
A tarsal or two, the ribcage harmonium
Holds soundless air.
And I gasp, hastily thumb my worn
Africa guide, where the measly index
Finds you between Transvaal and
Udzwunga Mountains, far further north,
The scene of a crime: Turkana Lake.
This is the place where man was born,
And where you died.
Setting out early, you and a band of five or six
Ignored the three-toed horses and wading birds,
The yellow thorn tree, where a hippo yawned
And let you pass. But giant wildebeest saw intent
In that strange bipedal lope and knew, a hunt was on.
Antelope. You were in their russet
Charging thickness, the stone-clenched fists
Heaved and swung, missed, and swung again.
An old buck made his mark, a corkscrew horn
Tore bloody and purple, your flank flared.
Perhaps you were separated, or crawled
To the silky water’s edge and hid fevered limbs
In long, damp reeds. A day or two, and you
Would sink. Did hunger make them leave?
I can tell you this: people leave people still.
The Kenya National Museum is filling up.
Teachers, children, the sneakered Yankee
Hordes and others - all running
From dark Nairobi rain. They can read how
Leakey dug you up, in time. All I know,
Something there was born,
and something died.
 |
| Illustration by Ruari Macinnes |
Page(s) 45-46
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