Elegy For A Forgotten Covenant - Part 1
By Sandy Macintyre
A long time ago, when I was just about seven or eight,
me dear sweet tanty see me playing by meself under the house and she say boy come over here to me. She was
working in she kitchen garden, she put me to kneel down right beside her and she say in
that soft, sweet but deadly serious voice of hers: " Boy you see dis," lifting up a
handful of earth "dis is creation self, you better believe it and you better had embrace it."
Den she lay down flat and put she lips on the ground and den getting up again she
held me hand tight, tight and looking straight into me eyes said in the most solemn
voice: " Child you and me, together, wid all who come before and all who coming after,
linked as one with dis. We forget how to speak the language of the trees and fields
and we does'nt hear when the earth whispersing to we. We does only react when it roars in
pain and anger in a voice so loud we just can't ignore it, but sit still here by me and listen and
it will come back to you.
| |
DOWN!
DOWN!
DOWN!
into the jewel of life
rich brown earth that breathes heavily
as I dip my hands deep, deep, deep
this priceless gem flows through my fingers
falling
DOWN!
DOWN!
DOWN!
like the flowing tears of the hungry children
for whom its preservation
is their only salvation
DOWN!
DOWN!
DOWN!
I go to embrace and softly kiss
the amphitheatre of existence
scene of toil and strife
of rich harvest and arcane ceremonies
the very bread basket of life
DOWN!
DOWN!
DOWN!
To be at one with the plowed furrows
overflowing with dew and history
and my gentle kiss reverberates
through the stacked stone strata miles below
to be echoed on the four winds
reuniting the beautifully plumaged
but delicate Blue Jean
with the tapestry of stars
that fill the night sky
seducing the little bird
to sing it's song again and again
at the break of each new day
DOWN!
DOWN!
DOWN!
deeper and deeper
I sink my living body
into the luminous darkness
the map of vessels beneath my skin
full of blood
bursts and descends into the landscape
as every atom of my being
becomes residue
with broken plants, milky sap, grubs, alluvial silt
and other mysteries of origin
pushing
DOWN!
DOWN!
DOWN!
gathering my body together again
as it resonates with the consoling rhythm
of new recognition
DOWN!
DOWN!
DOWN!
I sink my heart
into the center of the nether world
and unleash the feats of my ancestors
in the canefields,
Canefields full and flowing
like a green, green sea
a sea that was fertilized and nourished
by the blood and bones of those that perished
a sea that swept many away
onto a distant shore
a sea that is sustained by the muscle and sinew of the infinite
DOWN!
DOWN!
DOWN!
|
| |
to the earth to be embraced
in its tender bosom
and rejuvenated and revived
for I am always falling
always fighting furiously
so that the World
will escape the shadow of tyranny
exchanging its pain and sadness
for one sun soaked ray of joy
a tiny glimmer of hope
a flicker of flame
auguring unbounded love
DOWN!
DOWN!
DOWN!
Into the earth that is clear and fresh
wide and eternally new
wide as the hips of the broadest woman
DOWN!
DOWN!
DOWN!
sinking deep, deeper, deeper still
into those hips
knowing through inevitable avalanches of tremor
illimitable jubilation awaits
perfected by the practice of centuries
life springs forward again and again
fathered by an intimate sun
that lights the birth of succulent fruits and beloved flowers
this brazen brocade of love
unleashes a blind force
that bestows on us the bounty of
cassava, caschima, and christophene
causing colours to erupt and leaves to dance
with carnivalesque splendor
parading and spiraling towards the transparent winds
|
|
