Sharing daydreams

The concept of Daydreams started as a project of daily meditations in 1996. It seemed that the issues that dominated my daily life became more meaningful to my spiritual progress when expressed in writing. Usually I wake up with something on my mind, sometimes personal, sometimes of the world around me. I set out to find an appropriate quotation to reflect my mood, and use it as inspiration to guide my writing . I still have many on file that has to be edited and the list is growing.

So far my life as a blogger has been restricted by my health. When you feel ill it is difficult to take ye ole brain and consciousness out for display. I have decided to share some of my old writing on days when the muse fails or on days that the body wins. In this way I can create a new record for my old work while creating a new body of writing, photos etc. Hopefully this will encourage more faithful blogging.

Currently all the edited daydreams are here

Today I share with you:
New Cycles


A freedom song

Atieno washes dishes,
Atieno plucks the chicken,
Atieno gets up early,
Beds her sacks down in the kitchen,
Atieno eight years old,
Atieno yo.

Since she is my sister’s child
Atieno needs no pay,
While she works my wife can sit
Sewing every sunny day:
With her earnings I support
Atieno yo.

Atieno’s sly and jealous,
Bad example to the kids
Since she minds them, like a schoolgirl
Wants their dresses, shoes and beads
Atieno ten years old.
Atieno yo.

Now my wife has gone to study
Atieno is less free.
Don’t I keep her, school my own ones,
Pay the party, union fee,
All for progress: aren’t you grateful
Atieno yo?

Visitors need much attention,
All the more when I work night.
The girl spends too long at the market,
Who will teach her what is right?
Atieno is raising fourteen,
Atieno yo.

Atieno had a baby
So we know that she is bad.
Fifty fifty it may live
And repeat the life she had
Ending in post-partum bleeding,
Atieno yo.

Atieno’s soon replaced.
Meat and sugar more than all
She ate in such a narrow life
Were lavished on her funeral.
Atieno’s gone to glory,
Atieno yo.

Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye

African Women's Poetry

Stella and Frank Chipasula

There are a few feelings that this poem evokes in me. We let our lives fall into a pattern and once it takes on form, we let it lie there without stepping out and saying we want more. We don’t just want what is predestined. I think that we often see bad patterns in other people’s lives but we don’t have the courage to step in to suggest a change. Apathy is what is killing our society in the 20th century. Individually it is impossible to change society as a whole but it is possible to touch one life at a time and make the world of difference. When we see a child or a woman is in a situation where their lives is miserable or worthless we need to speak out. When people are racist or cruel we need to speak out. We can not sit by and say: “I don’t want to get involved.” Every time you do that, you are destroying a part of your society, a part of who you are. We can make changes in the lives of others, we can make changes in our own lives. Our lives and death need not just be a part of a repeated cycle.

First written 26 May 1997
edited 7 September 2009