I Promise We’ll Come To A Point Of Understanding

Poem by Imani Maya Barasa + Interview

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The sun glitters warmly on a leafy Nairobi Suburb,
cream-coloured plastic seat set out on the cabro blocks,
tyke asleep on the tank, and a small black radio
floats Franco’s enchanting vocals around the compound.
Even the variegated hedges seem to sway
to the energetic rhythmic melodies of TP OK Jazz.
Dad seats cross-legged on the plastic seat as he peruses
the Sunday paper just out of the sun.
He has exceptional taste in music,
I remember him best through
the music he played on that little black radio he often carried around,
each song ignites a different memory from a time past.
Replaying them crafts a humanizing perspective of him.
Outside of this hard-shell persona of ‘father’, engineer, managing director.
I don’t have a home yet but when I imagine home
it feels like the feeling I get when I listen to those tracks,
those Sunday afternoons,
it feels like a fleeting moment I’m not quite sure ever existed.