Poetic Response from a Traveler/Respuesta Poetica de una Viajera

Compound Ceremonies (A Poem from Ethiopia)

(for Greg)

I saw your death in the hills,
One rose like the Martiniquaise Diamont.
Loomed above, struck like a monolith,
A headline for your obituary.

Today’s manuscripts were forged in 30 kg. of gold,
Etched in recurring forms,
No artist would admit to these letters.

My lover phoned, non-caffeinated.
I stared at panoramas pre-biblical in origin.
Few syllables seemed magnified by the tchat,
Lidded by this strange narcolepsy.

Now I’d walk, crank a lantern,
Don borrowed gloves,
Climb alongside crutches,
Ox horns poised to gore.
Slurp soup from a chicken I’d passed roadside
On the arm of a boy who had petted it
Like a kitten or a pigeon.

Milky blind eyes, unexpected limbs,
A polio survivor who wore four shoes to support his hands,
Frail old women who feverishly kiss the steps of St. Mary’s church,
Miracles in the film on their lips,
Every day a pilgrimage six hours ahead.

More nervous here than in Dire Dawa,
“City of Thieves,”
When solicited for crosses and camels,
I try to pronounce the Amharic for husband.
This sounds something like bahl.

I’ll leave clothes for baskets,
Buy necklaces in threes,
String instruments in blankets,
Celebrate thirty-three among Ethiopia eyes,
Smelling your funeral in incense and campfire.

Bonnie Macallister


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