Shona, 31 december 2011
Immigrant
Transplanted immigrants
We grow roots in foreign soil.
Struggling like weeds amongst home grown desired
Shrubs, bushes, flowering plants,
We scatter seeds that blend with these
As we appease the greater garden,
We, tenuously, escape pesticides
And weed wackers: we blend,
Cope and adapt;
Growing luscious, emerald, flourishing, flowering;
We become grafted into alien foliage,
We give back or we take back
Moisture from damp soils;
Become prominent in ways sometimes seen
As invasive and intrusive; bearing strange fruit.
We become overgrown at times;
Tangled masses; branches, roots intertwined; seeds
scattering
On winds, on time, on nature.
We struggle for deeper roots.
Shona, 29 december 2011
1. Burden
I hold the world on my head,
The whole world, as I know it.
Tilted precariously, perched atop
My head; I have to keep it steady, keep up
This balancing act, because if it falls off my head…
Well, if it falls off my head, it will crash down
like the
Wrath of a thousand, seriously, pissed-off gods.
Oh, so I move this way and that;
A flemenco dancer, a contortionist,
The world makes an unwieldly hat;
Perched, precariously, petulantly on the
Top of my head.
I have the world on my head, the whole damn world
As I know it.
And I am never too sure what to do with it.
My world tilted
timidly on the top of my head.
And I really wish I knew what to do with it.
Shona, 29 december 2011
1. PAPA
My
father was a spiritual man;
well
worn spiritual shoes soled with Psalms and Revelations,
He
spoke with the voice of Leviticus.
The
Bible, his umbrella,
Protection
from Satan’s reign.
He
went, door to door,
Late
nights on London’s granite streets.
He
came home,
head
bashed and bleeding,
Jesus
in an ill-fitting suit;
Set
upon by wolves and romans who saw
Only
that his skin, khaki brown,
Was
different, desired to devour him.
“Go
back to Asia” words soldered to bats and fists.
All
he could reply, before one tooth let fly,
“Lord,
Lord, me Jamaican, man”
The blows became a flood.
Shona, 29 december 2011
1. GRATITUDE
She looked up to the sky
To blessing, gift of water that
Washes away layers of dust from fields
From crops, from the ever present
Ever looming haunt of Hunger.
Water feeds hunger; water keeps them here
On this land, in this place; kept them from becoming
dust.
No water, no life.
But now the rains fell;
Deluge, it was truly a deluge!
The fields heave with new breath, quietly at first
As if awakening from a deeply, comatose state;
The land pulses; water flooding its veins.
And the rain it fell
Swirling muddy rivulets forming, and the rain it
fell.
Quenching,
quenching, water hitting dirt and
The smell of it, the rising, aromatic, earth scent
of rainwater
blending with dirt. It made her giddy.
As she felt the earth drink deeply drunkenly, as if
to forget
Being made brittle and unyielding.
Symbolism of loss and of hope, it fell and water
careened into dry riverbeds.
Children ran screaming and laughing; clutching
buckets, pans, tin cans,
So that they too could drink become drunk, with water
The rain clouds had brewed stored, distilled, now
released.
She looked up
to the sky and felt those giant teardrops
Of gratitude roll
down her cheeks.
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