the hood in brotherhood

for those of you who tend to get a little confused (there there), i am NOT Cempulappeyanirar, I am me. Cempulappeyanirar's poem is not my poem, my poem is the one that appears after the ------. Good then.
there are echoes of james taylor and a tamil poet called Cempulappeyanirar in this poem, but mostly it is inspired by talking to someone after a period of silence. i first saw the Cempulappeyanirar poem years ago on the tube in london, the tube were doing a season of poetry. this one really struck me so i jotted it down. i have since googled around, which is how i found it again. i have tried to find tamil poetry read aloud online but failed... you tube has something but it's ever so slightly cheesy music set to written poetry. i would really like to hear the red earth poem read in the original tamil. Looking around i found a poet called Daljit Nagra, who i found amusing. he's got stuff on you tube.

Kuruntokai - "Red Earth and Pouring Rain"

What He Said

What could my mother be
to yours? What kin is my father
to yours anyway? And how
Did you and I meet ever?
But in love
our hearts have mingled
as red earth and pouring rain.

-- Cempulappeyanirar


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we are all children in the end

looking out at the highway i see the long distance trucks
pushing on through the rain to the far reaches of this land
this imperfect continent and i have just heard a voice from
such a reach, an extremity, far from the heart, beating nonetheless.

we greeted each other as i was taught by kith and kin
we greeted each other as southerner and northerner
as one to another, one tribe to another, bound by sadness,
the tone of the voice, the separation, the remembrance.

fierceness masks the child, the defiant eyes belying the trembling soul
feast days, high days, days to nod unto each other, to recognise
the ties between all men and women, ties of hope and love, the cloak
the hood in brotherhood, all else falling away in sweet relief.

Clear as a Bell

West Wing Season VII, an episode called Undecideds. Latino presidential candidate is visiting a black church in LA. There are already tensions between the two communities and now a black kid is shot dead by a Latino cop. The candidate speaks at the church but before he does the gospel choir sings. Uplifting, soulful, as gospel always is. The words of the song are the final words of this poem.

Belle of the Choir

eyes, sorrowful, eyes watery, welling up
with childishly bitten-back passionate pique
eyes that have seen so much and betray it
the voice sings as the eyes look on intently
the song reaches out towering as a school marm
commanding as she who has suffered and
mothered for sometimes the two are one and the same
preceded by a preacher a good man but his words easy
his words scripted, the valley of death.

she though, for all the spiritual reference, she has
furrowed soul and sorrowful strength and skin
ancestral, vocal chords strung high, low, wired to
heart and accessing emotion, vibrating lung
her message is simple as the bell of the choir
robed rhythm, downtrodden drudge, for a moment
free for a moment to peal forth the sweet word
and the word is listen and the command is inherent
and the word is holy: I will listen all day long.