Begin forwarded message:
From: Akwasi Aidoo <akwasi.aidoo@gmail.com>
Date: February 24, 2018 at 7:34:20 PM CST
To: Akwasi Aidoo <akwasi.aidoo@gmail.com>
Subject: Today's PoeMeal
Dear Friends & Colleagues,
Today, it's a three-course "poemeal" that will fill you up with every "vitaL-min(ute)" your soul needs to get through this second month of the year.
The poems are by Philip Levine and Gerry Salole. Levine's poem comes from an old issue of New Yorker magazine, and Gerry's came as a gift a while back.
Gerry's poem is about the butterfly hunter, gatherer & collector in our lives who can't help it, it seems. The "social lepidopterologist" is a specialist in scaring off every shadow of beauty in us (there are quite a few now, aren't there?). How one keeps such at bay is the ticklish question the poem beautifully dances around. It's sweetly anchored in a subtle mix of concrete reality & the realm of the human spirit. The concrete and ethereal often don't go well together in unraveling the subterranean meaning of things, but here we have it all in one poem! And it's so sensibly human. It's a quality Gerry's poem shares with Levine's.
And, the meal wets our appetite more, even as it fills us up. See how Levine offers it: "The wind kept prodding / at my back as though determined / to push me away from where I was, / fearful, perhaps, I would come to rest." We always must keep exploring, for this world we call home is a never-ending chain of humanity. Notice how the mystical "man" in Levine's poem "squats down to eye level / takes my right hand delicately in his" even when there's no common language between him and the stranger?
The desert is, as expected, is a great song by a great duo ~~ the amazing Kenyan musician, Eric Wainaina, and the equally great Senegalese musician, Baaba Maal. The song is titled, The Road. You got to listen to it to add years to your life expectancy!
Now, let me stand out of your way, so you can dance or die! LOL.
The Lepidopterologist at Bay
by Gerry Salole
Its staccato form comes out of darkness
and curiously prevails,
cautiously coughing
falsely feebly humble
but silently persistently insistent
(a prima donna nonetheless)
demanding full attention
NOW!
flickering memory
and a shortness of breath
merely to remind one,
maybe t'ís overdone
this feverish, frenzied, random
leaping from thought to thought
the vaulting monkey
the "butterfly collector" ultimately
blocked, tired, check-mated
frozen in his tracks
but then,
surely…slowly...but inevitably,
it returns
the familiar weight,
comfortably shuffling unto
it's habitual shoulder perch
and in the fleeting second
the vapid mind is off
the hunt is on
Did I spot even a glimmer in the eye?
Surely, sounds like somewhat lighter feet
Unto the next thing
Thinking jauntily
What's next?
Where's that next gig?
Resilient optimism
Burning candles
Both ends
In Another Country
by Philip Levine
A man spreads out dried fruit
on an old blanket and lets the flies
descend in a frenzy. When I try to shoo
them away he squats down to eye level,
takes my right hand delicately in his,
shakes his head, and mumbles
what might be a prayer or words
of advice or a curse. I don't know
because no one here -- neither the sellers
nor the buyers -- speak language
I understand. An old grandfather
whose white hair halos his head
sits cross-legged on the damp grass
smoking his pipe, his eyes closed.
His wares: a pyramid of stained teeth.
Shall I assume he is the dentist
of the town? There is no town, only
fields of long grass blowing in the wind
and beyond the wind the gray mountains.
A young woman, her forehead
and cheeks a web of delicate tattoos,
holds out a bowl of red powder.
Her eyes are so alive I have to
look away. She licks a forefinger,
then jabs it into the powder and offers
me a taste. Blue and white pennants
fly from the tent poles. Women and children
on muleback stream down the hills
or from nowhere. The powder tastes
like nothing I know, not bitter like
orange rind nor sweet like ground
rose petals nor bland like dyed flour.
I had heard there were storks nesting
on the haystacks and on the tallest
chimneys of the remote villages,
and that wild, black-winged falcons
circled the fields all day keeping
watch over the land, feeding on whatever
came to rest. I saw none of that:
the only birds were tiny and caged,
beating their wings against the bars,
chattering like distant voices in dreams.
I've forgotten how I got there. I followed
the sound over a rise to the open field
where the sun poured down its grace
on the long grass, the animals, the men
and women. The wind kept prodding
at my back as though determined
to push me away from where I was,
fearful, perhaps, I would come to rest.
The song (The Road): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv45mLkOtv8
Love & Peace,
Akwasi
No comments:
Post a Comment