*written march 16*
I am reading this book at my great-grandfather's bedside. He's in the ICU, and has been for the last month due to a stroke. Following his stroke, two cardiac arrests, pneumonia, and most recently, a tracheotomy. He is more responsive today than any day that I've seen him. We're taking turns reading to him, my mother and I, and he moves his arms, squeezes our hands when we ask him about the poems. He even opened his eyes and nodded when we asked if he wanted us to keep reading to him.
That really made this book hit differently for me. To talk about healing, read about the many uses of achiote in a place that feels so heavy with grief and loss and fear, gave us something to hold onto. This book bled a poetic healing into the dark of the room.
I am led to one section my great-grandfather liked the most.
we carry the shells to her porch and deseed/their red hearts/ place them in aluminum trays shining/ beneath the territorial sun
This is still a book talking about conquest. But to say it out loud, in the same breaths as naming herbal remedies that feel lost.....this is still something that heals us. This poetic healing that develops through speaking healing remedies out loud, I feel a more authentic medicine. Herbal everything, a connection to the earth through what we've been through alongside it.
In this hospital room, the brown tree snakes that were brought to Guam is the pain my great-grandfather's fighting within his body. To heal, they must be addressed, noticed, dealt with....moved through....like illness.
This is beautiful Kimani! "In this hospital room, the brown tree snakes that were brought to Guam is the pain my great-grandfather's fighting within his body. To heal, they must be addressed, noticed, dealt with....moved through....like illness." There's so much metaphoric beauty in this. I like how you say to heal they must be addressed. Some people do move forward in life from trauma but nothing else sometimes we continue vicious cycles. And sometimes move forward and break cycles through healing and addressing like illness. I'm super sick right now so this is making me think of the process of healing or trying to heal oneself.
ReplyDeleteKimani!
ReplyDeleteThe fact that you were able to relate the very real pain/ longing for healing and strength inside this book to your own loved one strikes me as the power of this book. It stays with you long after you've put it down and the poems stick to you even when you've turned the page. I think your statement "Herbal everything, a connection to the earth through what we've been through alongside it" is spot on in that it describes how the work felt to read, that there may be trauma, colonialism, and snakes trying to take us out but we return to the land, our roots, the power of our ancestral plants/medicines and are healed.
thanks for this!
xoxo,
Rai
Kimani!
ReplyDeleteI loved the awareness and attention to the duality of this book of poetry, yes it is about conquest, about the effects of colonialism and of war but this is also about reclaiming, about healing and about making things right.
I absolutely loved your response!
Everything!
ReplyDeletee