TODAY'S POEM 22ND MARCH 2020
(Poem in 3 voices and finally ready to be born, in time for my coming birthday)
THE SONG OF PAWLI
The Cat.
Do you think it strange how I,
an Obsidian Cat, will sit
and watch over these bones?
Look how perfectly they lie there
aligned from head to
ankle
on the sleeping
shelf.
The door and roof may
have crumbled
and drifted away, but
her bones
each day, only gleam more
white
her spirit and mine are
the one and the same
I still feel every
bend and stretch
of her leg or hand –
when I leave, I’ll forget.
I do not want to
forget.
Not yet.
Look at the sky.
We lie here watching
it, her and I,
through the slot of
the doorway.
Glory, glory to Allah
for the wonder of it.
Sir, so tell me who
you are
and why you sit there
listening to me
like a domestic
hunting bird of prey,
are you lost or have
you run away?
( we did not run away
– we just had to go.
First to live, then
to die.)
Your feathers as you
preen them
remind me of her
oiling and tying her hair.
She wore it tight and
sleek to her head.
Her hair was her only
claim to beauty,
that plus her
fingers. Her face?
If I answer she was
never bedded
by the Lord of the
Caravan – he who
kept adding to his
extensive harem
such was his need for
women?
No, external beauty
was never one
of her attributes,
survival had to come
from her using her
wits.
Pawli replies
Oh! Stop our story there:
even in spirit
I must protest and contradict
you,
my perfect cat, my
stone of memory.
The first night my
beloved Master was away
training the army,
The Lord of the Caravan
did have me brought
to his bed.
But at nine I had no
knowledge of the sensual arts
or bringing a man
into the illusion of his virility.
I laughed at his soft
podgy body, his impotent
fumblings. Each new
ring I wore was proof
of a further year I
kept my silence of that night:
not from the erotic
songs I later taught his women
to entertain him.
The Cat.
I remember your first
ring of turquoise and pearls;
you hid it from all
sight but mine,
but that also was the
day your head was turned
by coloured baubles
and pretty trinketty things;
anything bright and
shiny and you hovered
wanting to own it.
Tell me again of the
beginning, the very beginning
when you stood and
looked to the sky.
Pawli replies.
The sky was paling.
The stars were fading
and shining Venus
rose early from her bower
from below the
horizon to lead the sun,
her lord and master, up
into the sky.
“Love me. Love me –
Venus watch over me,”
I whispered up to her,
before I lifted the latch
and tiptoed away from
my sleeping home
wearing – 1 cotton dress
1 braided belt with a golden
thread
1
woollen cloak
2
leather sandals
Carried - in a sack
1 carved obsidian cat
1 multi-coloured ball
of wool
3 sticks of writing
charcoal
in my other hand a staff to fight
off robbers
I was nine. I had
dreams of a perfect life
ahead of my eyes. And
Venus, my Venus
would look out over
the land,
bringing me to the
famous Caravan
I’d heard was passing
by.
My feet were
skipping.
My feet were running
along the shuttered
alleys,
through the city gate
and out onto the open
road.
Was it Venus? Was it
fate?
For already he was
waiting there, my wondrous,
my beloved, my
darling protector.
Black as black on the
blackest horse
and his eyes! His
eyes were not brown, nor yellow
but glittered down a
most amazing green.
He laughed when he
heard my plea, and
of my life-long
obsession to become a famous scribe.
If he’d just take me
with him in the passing Caravan
someone would
immediately want to apprentice
a clever girl like me,
and I could learn to read and write.
And then his arms,
his arms, came down and swung
me up onto his horse,
naming me Pawli – the found one.
You never understood cat,
how on that day I gave my love
and never would,
never could, love another.
The Cat.
And then? And then?
You were only nine
What could you expect
from your love?
Each night as you lay
deep in your bedroll
guarding the door,
you turned your back
on the passionate
love-making inside
between master and
his beautiful wife
and you repeated over
and over
vocabulary lists into
my stony ears
as you tried, and tried
not, to hear.
And Master kept his
word.
Every afternoon a
soldier
delivered you to the
teachers
and every evening you
were called
to stand by his knee
and be tested
on what you had
learnt.
He loved you the same
as if you were the
blood of his family
rather than a waif he
had found
on a foreign plain.
Tell me the story
again of why, all of a sudden,
he sent you off to
the Lord’s harem?
Pawli replies.
Oh cat, I’ll never
forget that day of my greatest
fortune and also the
day of my greatest shame.
It was my fourteenth
birthday and he came home
to find me both
smiling and naked in his bed
– but he pulled me
from there and threw me down
like some thieving
dog to the ground outside.
Yet he did not beat
me – I gained hope in that.
Then he called to a
soldier to pick up
and deliver me unharmed
into the harem
of the Caravan’s Lord.
His first son was
born the same day.
Each time he looked
at his son,
I daydreamed he would
also remember
me naked, the feeling
of my bare skin
in his arms when he
lifted me
from out of his bed. I
could wait until
his desire for me
would grow - like a seed
grows to a tree in an
desert oasis.
As his wife aged so I
would blossom.
My Master’s protection
also ended that day.
There was now an
urgent need to survive.
Learn how to co-exist
among a hundred women.
The Cat.
And don’t forget.
That day also
signified the end
of your teachers and
training.
The opportunities you
were given, all gone.
Never: to master the Scriptures.
Lost: your fate to become a scribe.
The Laws say you must
re-incarnate and start again.
Pawli replies.
Cat of mine, you must
remember how quickly
I came to realise I
was not clever enough
to become more than
average in my studies?
How their languid
language full of rounds
and swooping
syllables would not turn easily
on my stubborn
tongue?
Remember those first
months the traitor tears
I cried for a return
to our abandoned life
with my mother and
sisters?
But cat, you and I
were thrown into great fortunes.
I could read and
write, and I could do it exceedingly
well when I combined
those skills with the memory
of whispered words
and phrasings of love and passion
I’d heard between
Master and his responsive wife.
The harem women
crowded me to write their letters
and songs - together with
my reputation for secrecy,
our survival was
sealed.
The Cat.
And yet, when it was
expected you’d end your life
surrounded with love,
safe within the pomp and splendour
of a famous harem, one
evening you packed your sack
and walked one way, when
the Caravan folded its tents
and went the other.
Tell me again, why
you left.
Pawli replies.
I felt envy.
And envy is terrible
how it corrodes a heart.
Though the women may
have envied me for my power,
for my ability, with words
and ledgers – for my homeliness
that kept me from being
sold into the beds of men – for the
secrets I would not
share; not even disclose the name
of the man who
fathered my stillborn sons.
I envied them more.
And often my envy of
them was overwhelming:
for their beauty they
accepted as casually as being born
with two eyes. Their
sexual intrigues with lovers
who defied death to
be in their arms, and the gifts of silks
and rare jewels they
received, in return for their favours.
But I envied them
most for their easy intimacy
with each other, for
their living children.
The day I left was
the same day I felt my death
closing in. I could
hear my old name being called
on the blowing wind. Awakening
my thirst for freedom,
a thirst to return to
a simple life. I was tired of having
to go to the persistent
ringing from the silver bells.
Venus, my planet,
shone brightly in the evening sky.
“Love me. Love me.
Show me the way,” I whispered up
as I started walking
wearing - 1 heavy cloak
1 woollen dress
1 braided belt
with a golden thread
2 leather boots
carried in a sack
2 cotton dresses
1 pouch of rings
1 scroll
1 carved obsidian
cat
and carried a smile
that would scare the
bravest of robbers
Pawli and the Cat in
unison
The goats arrived The goats arrived
the day I shifted in the day I shifted in
to the abandoned room to the abandoned room
of sun-dried bricks - of sun-dried bricks
a week’s walk to the
markets a week’s walk to the markets
to sell a ring to sell a ring
when I needed money when I needed money
to buy my simple
needs to buy my simple
needs
Some rings remain with my scroll under the
stone where the washbowl sits
And I lie to look at
the sky. And I lie to look at
the sky
At the stones. At the stones.
The colours in the
gritty land. The colours in the gritty land.
The wind is always
here to talk The wind is always here to talk
with me. - I learnt
of God with me. - I learnt
of God
who lives without the
need who lives without the
need
of letters or numbers of letters or numbers
and my peace is
overwhelming and my peace is overwhelming
The sky. The sky. The sky. The sky.
Glory, glory to Allah Glory, glory to Allah
for the wonder of it. for the wonder of it.
The Angel Answers.
I AM THE DARK ANGEL OF FORGETFULNESS
MY LITTLE PAWLI WITH YOUR OBSIDIAN
CAT.
YOUR STORY HAS BEEN UNWOUND AND TOLD
AND NOW IT IS
TIME TO COME WITH ME
UP INTO THE
SKY YOU LOVE – AND AS YOU FLY
START TO
VISUALISE THE NEW BEGINNING
