Like fans of morning ocean breeze we stir to ferocious cock
waking turns, monkey noise unheard of inside temple walls;
grace hands smoothing the closed sheets.
Ankle bells
main road transport heat, rumours of mad cow mad ras
scowling the city.
We cherish lines to pin garments wet for sun stroke, we
call the children inside. Prayers we chant but don't export
trusting the cicadas to join in like khartals, keeping us
safe from drum down areas in darkness.
The sweat slash burn off cane paths made a wish
for the order of dry good stores, land fixtures
with address;. No head pails spilling sorry come
tomorrow; fresh hurt.
Bright nephews fly off, cricket
white countries, doctors for the frail health of front page
news. You can redeem air mail miles saved 'cross generations.
Wait ̶
see our tooth bent Saddhu smiling? work done, cycling home?
We buffer the web work of spiders in the Fate House ̶
our hairies, their cabinet big filings for first bite; fence
filigree like wire barbed to deny and fare well.
Our front steps glow with deyas
for shadows returning from fields of mud; our martyrs. Our
grave yards breathe weed free, not like elsewhere bones broke
tossed in corbeau holes, clods from sodden manner; the feral
things they do, you know.
How did estate huts trade up for orhni leisures? Our gods
watch willing. What goes on inside us should not concern
the teller. So flaring green the grass in villages left unsired;
too old if we owned gold stalls we'd offer to the cows.
Past longing, if you insist.
Count the pipal shoots
arriving, bracelet arms inset to serve.
– W.W.
THE AUTOHARPIST AND
THE TRUMPETER
The price of pride is a certain
loneliness, and the lonely fear
of never being recognised
fuels vanity's loudest lamps.
Solitude, like community,
must be earned, each other's wages
of awareness ̶ else sheer blindness
circling in its accustomed fear
̶̶ fear no bird always at the centre
of the air's pressure can afford: no
matter how many pauses of perch
it may take, it must always remain
alert to the will of the wind and
the whims of its own wings' responses
within a humility that wears
no name's arrow or shield, yet declares
itself lonely vanity's victor.
(from "Within The Wind" © by Brian Chan)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 