Queen of the Ngoma

Queen of the Ngoma(Dance)

Cherish the Ngoma
whether merriment or murder
whether beer is drank or blood

dance the dance of ancestor’s past
with crackling shells & jingling bells
glisten a purifying sweat
dripping the sacrificial drops
bodies enclose well-worn paths
that encircle the blazing ritual fires
teeming, living walls steam & glitter-
reflecting the flames & proud displays
of agility, armbands & bangles,
scarred cheeks & pierced bodies
to impress, to decorate,
to show authority & prowess
Lines of men, of warriors & hunters,
begin the dance ‘round the central blaze
    brandishing spears & torches
    beating, pounding drums
    shrill flutes & death rattles
Lines of women weave through the periphery
a sort of chaotic order
a practiced frenzy
an ebb & flow between life & death
evanishing amid the billows of smoke & spirits
the people feel; the shaman sees
the atmosphere climbing with
the newly dead, the lost
spirits drunk on the libations pro-offered
the smells of sweat & spices
of leather & man
of animal & child
The cyclone spins opening
to the most powerful

a frame of life frozen in time; a flashback to the birth of fire

a small covey of birds take flight
& the wind was filled w/ the wail of the souls;
the darkness overcame me like a drug, but the wind had come,
the wind that comes for all spirits;
I was losing hold—but then I heard her,
as a spirit hears, though the birds or the night around
might not hear something so small & tragic as her whisper.
My love was calling me, calling me home.