The Soots and The Jamaz

“The Soots And The Jamaz”
By Tom Conigliaro

The soots hate the jamaz,
As one soot made clear.
The town had grown ugly
By way of look, rumor and fear.

“The jamaz do little
While we soots know no rest,
They quit so early,
Thinking pure thought to be best!”

The jamaz heard soots
Railing slurs from their dens.
And found themselves pained
By their new former friends.

That night, but later
P. Jamaz, himself,
Was hit with a vision
Of a new kind of wealth,

“The soots are stressed!
Their dry hearts clutch and choke.
They scrape like gears
With no oil to soak.”

“Let us find a new way
Lest our souls turn to ash,
Let us scale the tall trees;
Leave below all our trash.”

So they moved to The Wood,
Where they rested and hung.
From one branch to another;
Their limp bodies were slung.

Reclined in their hammocks
Suspended from trees,
Mastered by nothing
Save the soft sway of the breeze.

The jamaz, they rested.
They rested and hung.
Slung in a state
Neither sad nor fun.

To feel was too much
So, much was negated,
Ignoring The Bad:
Fear, Envy and Hatred.

But the soots knew the power
Of their dangerous drives.
They knew well the extremes
Creatures can reach in their lives.

The soots did fear.
And the soots did hate.
And when they fed Envy,
Their rage grew irate.

Passion rose quickly
And the soots sought to scheme.
They spied on the jamaz
Through the thick forest green.

They crept and they stared
And watched jamaz do nothing
Until one Grey Soot
Decided to do something.

“Go back to the town,
Make up for their slack,
I will scale the tall trees
And make good this attack.”

The rest of the soots
Marched back to the town
As Grey Soot crept forward
Hushed low to the ground.

Grey Soot killed a sloth
And returned in that skin.
Climbing in secret
As the jamaz’ closest kin.

For days he climbed—
So slow was his pace;
Straining to keep Hatred
From betraying his face.

No easy task
For a flask of emotion;
Bobbing through apathy
As thick as the ocean.

But the soot was determined,
P. Jamaz to find.
And when once he did,
He crept up from behind.

No fellow kept watch
As the soot drew near,
Poising a poison
Above P. Jamaz’ ear.

As the vial tipped sideways
And a drop nearly dripped,
The soot heard a sound
And his heart nearly ripped.

P. Jamaz had uttered
Something no soot could say--
A sound jamaz release
At the end of each day.

The soot lost his grip
As his muscles relaxed,
Down to the grass,
His body collapsed.

The jamaz rolled over
To sight what had fallen,
It looked like a creature
Wearing skin it had stolen.

Quickened they climbed,
Down to the ground,
And reaching the creature,
They circled around.

P. Jamaz came closest
Bending over the soot,
Off’ring for revival
A wet, messy fruit.

The soot sucked the nectar
Through his blue, cracked lips
And the creature grew stronger
With each of his sips.

P. Jamaz asked,

“Tell us your reason
For sneaking to me,
Was it too much to ask,
That things stay as they be?”

The jamaz, they watched,
With unusual interest.
All had come quickly
Over some considerable distance.

The soot lay still
Longer than any soot had stayed
He did not look nervous,
Angry, sad or afraid.

Instead he just smiled
Laying where he had fell,
And pondered the different ways
Of how his story to tell.

At last he spoke,

“I had come to kill him,
P. Jamaz, the One,
Who took so many hands
From what needed to be done.”

“All the long day,
We soots sweat and swear,
Yet you jamaz relax
Half-asleep in the air!”

“I was set to end,
Your lazy contrast,
When I heard a soft sound
Unknown to my past.”

The jamaz looked around,
Tried to find from each other,
A clue to the sound
That had saved them from slaughter.

Grey Soot continued,

“It was a sound so needed,
Yet, we soots never show
How at the end of the day
Our spirits sink low.”

P. Jamaz looked hard
At his group’s sleepy eyes,
And thought of the pain
Soots endure in their lives.

Surely these were extremes
And the gap was too wide.
No more could he sleep,
Dream, snore and hide.

P. Jamaz erupted,
With emotion unchecked.
His heart longed to heal
The city he’d left.

He scooped the lame soot
And met his tribe’s eyes,
“It is time to reclaim
What we have lost from our lives!”

That said, he turned,
Moving fast and swift.
The other jamaz struggled
To keep pace with his clip.

They came to the city,
But her streets were still,
So much scheme and work
Had robbed the town of its will.

Soots in the streets,
Barely breathing at all,
P. Jamaz took Grey
Atop the hill by The Hall.

Clearly he spoke,
With sound mind and purpose,
Determined to break through
The mistrust on the surface.

“Dear soots and jamaz,
Dear jamaz and soots,
It is time to restore
What we enjoyed at our roots.”

“For years we have chosen
Lives of leisure or toil;
One seeks detachment
The other pounds rock and soil.”

“But the soots and the jamaz
Are not the One or the Other,
Look at them as family;
As dear as your brother.”

“Show me siblings
Who seek not their own niche?
One child dreams pictures,
The other plans to be rich.”

Just then a young soot,
Schooled on Action and Hate,
Leapt at P. Jamaz
With a sharp piece of slate!

Grey Soot, whom had fallen
Jumped to his feet,
And the whole town knew
What job Hate would complete.

But he clutched the soot’s arm
And held the youth fast,
He spoke so loudly
Of his most recent past.

“Inches from murder,
My black venom near’ dripped,
When I heard that soft sigh,
Down the high tree I slipped.”

“As I fell through the air,
The Past stared plainly at me,
And I wondered if ever,
We would ever break free.”

“All the days we have labored,
All the nights we have schemed…
How to accomplish
All the things we have dreamed?”

“Not by laying,
For that never breaks theory,
But neither by working,
To a point beyond weary.”

“It may be a balance,
That makes things feel right,
Let us embrace a bit of each other,
And bury this fight.”

Now,

Silence hangs heavy,
Between the minds of rivals,
But silence breaks easy
With a smile’s arrival.

Thick cheers spiraled up,
Like smoke mixing with air,
And the tribes began an experiment,
Of balance, contribution and care.