Mamang Dai, India
Por: Mamang Dai
Lockdown
We were born green
cocooned in the rituals of growing things
planting, preparing auspicious symbols for a New Year
when the sickle of time cut everything down
And the thermal guns were out.
01
Between safe and infected
our words are banished behind a mask.
The first response is solitary.
I am sorry for the people of Wuhan
but a heavy dome has shut the doors
of travel, history, geography
the borders are closing down
There’s no crossing the yellow barricades.
It was the Bat----Here is the story of Covid-19
A war of theory and blame.
Nothing is exempt:
Trade vessels, camels, caravans,
a palm civet, pangolins,
a wet market is scrubbed to death--
The sun is going down,
Get ready, the wind is beginning to howl.
02
But it was us, I’m certain it was us-------
Don’t say it. The order is clear.
Don’t say those things about greed and dominance
about crossing the line,
Fish, fowl, pelt; ivory, whalebone
Dispossession and theft
Talk about our health.
It’s a big deal----
Germ theory, Hazardous Material
There’s food and money on the table,
Live stream and Big Tech,
For the public good ----Stay Home. Stay Safe.
03
How safe?
I woke up this morning trying to remember
the faces of my friends.
I have forgotten the shape of my slippers.
Is someone singing a song?
What is Song. Touch. Another country?
Under surveillance
In plague condominiums I am afraid
Someone will get inside our heads
After the war---- the aftermath.
The sirens are blaring.
Someone is shouting
I can’t breathe!
And we are waiting,
shielding our dimming lamps.
Is the white mist spreading?
04
But we were born green. I am certain
In midsummer the Taan tree will bloom again.
One day we will touch through the static
to honour the dead, wash the blood from our feet.
When there is nowhere to hide
between sheltered and homeless
the goal is the same
to survive, to feel our hearts beating again.
05
To hell with hunger and despair!
In the labyrinth of life and death
If a second chance is the recovery of meaning,
A memory floating in our veins,
There--- beyond the grey city and red zones
There lies my native village----
We’ll carry the old and injured,
Lift up the children, lift them up high,
when the road find us again, calling us to vital things
Green in the sun
Time is the wind carrying a big brush
mixing colours by ancient streams
flowing in all directions.
* Taan is a tall flowering tree believed to be protective and used for any number of rituals to cleanse and ward off evil.
When we needed someone
When we needed someone
I cried for the shaman,
seeking the words of generations to accompany us,
Where are all the shamans?
We needed someone
to mend these bones, lift this arm,
dress this shoulder, spine, collar, with fine ornaments
and place a spell under these feet
to heal this heart
and reclaim life and splendour.
The strong, black beetle is an uncle
visiting on the back of the wind
this rainy morning.
No, words are not dead.
Rustling through the trees
the shamans are in the garden,
their craft is not ended,
recounting each weathered moment
like beads, in a long conversation
to win mastery over time.
We meet here every day—
shamans, prayers, spirits.
The bees bring me a message:
This is for your protection,
Remember, and believe
the truth about land----
rainwater, sleep.
The truth about love----
eating flowers and thorns.
The truth about life—
eating flowers and thorns.
After Gabo
(A lockdown poem)
No one can say it like you said it
About love and magic,
Solitude, and growing old
Here it’s white butterflies
Whirling around in the garden
And the scent of bitter almond
Is the scent of orange blossom
You know, love is a virus too
Racing across continents and oceans
Jumping ship,
Landing up in ports and cities
so eager, enchanted,
by the banks of another river
in the time of quarantine
There are lines and lines
of communication
Jostling through a virtual pandemic
A sadness named, unnamed,
Fermina Daza, is it true
Everything is in our hands?
Outside my window
Red hibiscus, red.
If the aim is to survive
It’s time to weigh anchor again
For how long, who knows?
Our old life is gone.
It’s another summer
And the pages are turning
In a chronicle of things foretold
One battered flag in a time of lockdown.
Despite contrary winds
A battered flag is fluttering,
You’ll see it here and there
In the direction of the future,
Salt water, caresses,
Buoyant as the hearts of old lovers
Young enough to believe—
in forever.
***
Floating island
The sloping mountain is trying to reach me,
stretching down into the water.
Dear one, don’t go away,
rest, rest on my shoulder.
Deep in my centre a woman is asleep,
pressing her cheek on my pillow
vivid with dreams.
The birds of summer are nesting in her breast.
Who knows which way the spinning current will spin.
Farewell, blind mountain, pasted on the sky.
When the day is folded away
my heart clings to the life of water --
Into the deep, into the sea green
navigating on a heartbeat
the lilies are shooting up like swordfish,
and the woman is laughing, laughing.
Mamang Dai is an Indian poet, novelist and journalist based in Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh. She received Sahitya Akademi Award in 2017 for her novel The Black Hill.Her non-fictional works includes Arunachal Pradesh: The Hidden Land (2003) and Mountain Harvest: The Food of Arunachal (2004). The Sky Queen and Once Upon a Moontime (2003) are illustrated folklore texts by her. She published her first novel, The Legends of Pensam, in 2006, then she published Stupid Cupid (2008) and The Black Hill (2014). Her poetry collections are River Poems (2004), The Balm of Time (2008), Hambreelmai's Loom (2014), Midsummer Survival Lyrics (2014). She was General Secretary of the Arunachal Pradesh Literary Society, member of the North East Writers’ Forum and General Council member of the Sahitya and Sangeet Natak Akademi.
Some of her received awards are: Padma Shri in 2011 from the Government of India. The government of Arunachal Pradesh conferred her Annual Verrier Elwin Prize in 2013 for her book Arunachal Pradesh: The Hidden Land.
Published on 10.08.2021
