A Stone In The River - Eve Senn

For my dear friend Even Senn who passed away from Leukemia just days ago. A daughter of Colonial Kenya, born of European parents in a time and place that has vanished. She loved a flowing river, and named her daughters after two great rivers in Kenya, the Tana, and the Mara. For many years Eve and her family celebrated our mutual East African connection by having gatherings we called the Wajinga.  A group enthusiasts used to get together the share memories, sing songs and show movies and pictures. Her parents Lisa and Imre and Eve's bother and sister  Johnny and Julia were also firm friends.

A stone fell in the river           
Piercing the smooth dark glassy mirror
Plunging deep into its heart
Visible at first, then sinking
Absorbed down into the matted bed.
The water erupting at the point of entry
Rising out and up above the reflection
The reactionary spurt of excitement peaks,
Pauses and falls into ripples
Circling outward to the banks and grasses
Reverberating back in an eternity of entropy
Softening and never ending.

Eve is that stone,
Piercing our protective shells
Of awareness with exuberant enthusiasm,
Plunging into our hearts with warmth and affection,
Sinking into our psyches unnoticed
Lying there embedded,
Stirring reactions within us all
As her influence ripples out and around us forever,
Never ending, vibrating in all she touched

http://poetry.com/poems/688349-A-Stone-In-The-River

The Buffalo is the emblem of the Wajinga, a Swahili word for mad people.  We are mad about East Africa. The Swahili word for Buffalo is Niati

WAJINGA