for Abdel Aziz al-Maqaleh
Through the mandhara of your eyes,
dear Poet
I see each second of eternity pass, frame-
by-frame, over Sana’a
A Shadow constantly seeking its Object
Through the mandhara of your eyes,
dear Poet
I see the slow making of a City,
the slow making of a life
Here in the dust cloud
we call Life
Figures call from corners
“Turn this way!
Turn that way!”
Turning the ground
into the dust
We sift for memories
Through the mandhara of your eyes,
dear Poet
The revolving figures freeze mid-
dance, one leg off the ground
This is the Past
You are six years old
The name of the City is “Wonder”
You can return here if you wish,
dear Poet
You can start the dancers up again,
join them,
Leave us to watch you
Through the mandhara of your eyes,
dear Poet
Through your six year-old’s eyes,
we see Sana’a rise
A City slowly lifting, rising
not to the sky
But to the word “sky”
Not beautiful but flashing
like desert lightning
The word “beautiful”
We see the Past through the mandhara
of your eyes, dear Poet
Its name was “Sana’a”
Its name is “Sana’a”
The name of the poem,
“Sana’a”
Griot
1
someone does something
someone else tells about it
2
someone has a purpose
someone else draws attention to it
3
someone preaches
someone else rousts the crowd
4
someone does
someone tells
5
someone leads
someone tells the leader
everyone else follows the leader
6
the teller does not lead
the teller does not follow the leader
7
I was very excited when my children started middle
school, their first assignment: trace their family tree
they had to talk to their relatives and get dates, chart
the families with dotted lines and symbols, arranging
history, adding footnotes and maps of farflung places
in The Gambia, the griot Sulea Susso (Elhaji Papa
Bunka Hassan) tells the genealogy of his tribe, his
audience, listening, back a thousand years’ births
sung to the linking kora ears recording the words
8
in the USA, if you name a child
after yourself or your parent
they get to be “Jr” or “III”
in The Gambia, if you name a child
after yourself or your parent
other people can use that name
but you must call that child “papa” or “mama”
to show the respect due to the person
you named the child “after”
9
Mohammed always gave it all away
but he gave the griot the largest share
because if the griot did not gather the crowd
there would be no crowd
there would be nothing to give away
10
the only way to make a poem
is to tell what happened
what is happening now
11
the moment is the poem
12
the kora leads and the voice tells
13
the detail is the poem
he wears a gold bracelet every Thursday after he sleeps
with his second wife, gold bracelet that reflects
the empty spot where his eye-tooth was before his
first wife knocked it out
14
see the girl with the red dress on
I am in love with the woman next to her
that is my wife, my marriage, my life
mother of my children, she knows me better
than she knows herself, I know her better
than she does. And there is no competition
spent all those years looking at her looking
at me
15
the job of the griot is a job
no need to wait for/on the inspiring muse
right in front of you
red dress on