ฟังเพลงFifteen

Fifteen - Grace Nono

This could be the good year

The year that opens into fields

Where tables are laid with damask

Fine crystal silver where

In the background just

The edge of our vision

The porch anchors the horizon

In it's place

A curtain blurs into the wind

And the dark wooden baluster invites

Steps leading up and beyond

Like promise of grandchildren

Pap pap pa rap pap

Pap pap pa rap pap

Pap pap pa rap pap

In the first year I continued

To braid my hair pacing the cool

Confines of the kitchen

I washed the rice

I laid the china

Knife fork spoon water glass

Balancing on its unbroken lip

Faith like a mouthful

Of bread or fruit

Between the second

And the fourth two lives

Swam free

Pap pap pa rap pap

Pap pap pa rap pap

Pap pap pa rap pap

Each time my waters

Broke unstoppably

What were their origins

On hands and knees

I mopped the floor with a bit of rag

At dawn straddling pain

So new I felt that I can touch

The insides of myself

I learnt where I began and

How the end might possibly come

If it came as mercy

Where the edge of a new body split

From my skin

The rush of blood and fluid

Soft new bones intact delivered

This could be the good year

Luminous with the fat of expectation

The milk of property

Someone must have dreamt

Seven cows walking up the river bank

Behind them seven like strung shadows

Fifteenth following after

Ambiguous shade shape shifter

Was not from lack of attention

The bowl of dough we set

By the window failed to rise

To it's required height

Pap pap pa rap pap

Pap pap pa rap pap

Pap pap pa rap pap

Debts accumulated dwindle

But refuse to disappear

The outer wall we'd finished water proofing

Produces an indoor pool

An earthquake in July

Reduces us to our true capital

Pails of porous mortar

Loose stones aprons

Of ash and powder

An aggregate of sundered

Beams their iron nails

Still wed to yellowed wood

Pap pap pa rap pap

Pap pap pa rap pap

Pap pap pa rap pap

The children will pull away

Like kite strings

Loosed into the broad horizon

The coming days

Here are the thickets

Where we walked hand in hand

Trailing bread crumbs

Where we lose sight of each other

Even though

The moon has cleared the branches