Poetry Reading – Aug 22, 2014

Poetry sessions offer the widest variety of imaginative expression for our readers. They pose problems, as well, for the mind wants to get to the bottom of things, and often the poems are elusive as to their meaning. They suggest different things for different readers.

Elusive

Poems in translation are even more difficult to appreciate for they have been shorn of their original sounds, and perhaps had their language conventions turned upside down by the process of translation. Does Azmi's Urdu formalism make sense in English? Does Césaire's prose poem convey the nostalgia of the French when translated? Can Akhmatova be divorced from her soft Russian inflections and yet yield her treasures?

Nine readers try to show what can be achieved, mixing American and British writers with a variety of poets from all over the world.

Vijay, Thommo, Talitha, Priya, Gopa, Pamela, 

Divya Singh, Sujatha, Sreelatha, Ankush

KRG Poetry Reading – Aug 22, 2014

Members present: Thomas Chacko, Priya Sharma, Talitha Matthew, Gopa Banerjee, Ankush Banerjee, Sujatha Warrier, Sreelatha Chakravarthy, Sarah Pamela John, Vijay Narayan Govind

Guests: Sheila Cherian (Talitha’s mother) and Divya Singh (Ankush’s colleague)

The reading opened with a request that members should introduce themselves once again, since many newcomers and old timers had missed out on each other at the earlier readings.

Gopa in her introduction said that it was because of KRG that she was attempting to develop a liking for poetry; but poems do not give her the same satisfaction she derives from books. Thommo concurred with Gopa saying that he reads poetry only at KRG sessions; wrestling with poetry stopped with high school for many people. Gopa called Thommo a reluctant lover of poems. Pamela said she loves poetry and this may be on account of her love for music. The rendition of a song is never deep if one does not understand the profundity in the lyrics, she said, implying that songs are filled with poetry at the core.

Talitha

She began the reading with Anna Akhmatova’s poems: Song of The Last Meeting and Three Things Enchanted Him. The ellipses and the image of evensong in the second poem were discussed. Talitha said that evensong was an Anglican ritual and for a Russian poet to write about it was surprising. Gopa said that the poem was in translation and hence such an anomaly could occur.

Gopa

She read The Battle of Blenheim by Robert Southey from a book of poems that belonged to her mother-in-law. Southey’s relationship to Winston Churchill and the Marlborough family was discussed. The poem celebrates the fact that a war victory is far more important than the lives that are lost because of it. When did this sentiment change? Thommo, with his inimitable wit, said that though the battle of Blenheim was fought on the continent, the castle in memory of that victorious battle stands in England; this is like what George Bush would have done, for had he planned a war on Ukraine, American troops would have landed in New Zealand.

Sreelatha said that the beauty of poetry was that it had many voices.

Thommo

He read W.H. Auden’s Partition on Sir Cyril Radcliffe, the man who was responsible for drawing the line that partitioned India and Pakistan. It was topical. Priya said that everywhere the British had done a messy job of drawing borders, the war in Gaza being a case in point.

Ankush

He read the modern American poet William Carlos Williams. WCW belonged to a group of modern American poets who observed and celebrated ordinary life.

Pamela

She read Kamala Das’ A Losing Battle. Pamela said that the poem was inspired by an incident to which the poet was privy. The incident was about a young girl playing hopscotch. The innocent girl is called by her mother, half way through the game, to perform a task, after which she returned to continue the game but looked dazed. It seems in between she suffered some sexual abuse by an elder. The poet questions the abuse that women suffer silently and the different identities they live with.

While this may be Pamela's take on the poem, Joe on re-reading it several times found no trace of a hint of sexual abuse of children. Joe's conclusion is there is none.

Whether KD was led to her feminist stance by seeing child abuse in others, or having it happen to her, is a different issue, one of biography. This poem is about something else:

How can my love hold him when the other
Flaunts a gaudy lust and is lioness
To his beast? Men are worthless, to trap them
Use the cheapest bait of all, but never
Love, which in a woman must mean tears
And a silence in the blood.

She seems to suggest 4 things

1. Another woman ('lioness') has taken away the man she loved

2. The bait used to lure him was 'gaudy lust'

3. Men can always be enticed by this cheap stratagem

4. Men are not worth investing the real love of a woman, which entails suffering ('tears')

That's as much as one can read in the text. It's the cry of a woman scorned.

What was the raw material of its making? - perhaps her whole life, or one small experience, who knows? Anyway, why the rush to read a woman's biography in a single short poem?

Sujatha

She read Aimé Césaire, a Black French poet from Martinique. Sujatha read excerpts of the prose poem, Return To My Native Land that reflects the angst the poet felt when he returned from Paris to his native land and tried to accept its reality in comparison to the high Parisian life. Sujatha said Aimé Césaire is considered to be the father of Négritude, which was the origin of the 'Black is Beautiful' movement.

Aimé Césaire, poet, playwright, politician, and one of the most influential authors from the French-speaking Caribbean, was born in Basse-Pointe, Martinique, in the French Caribbean. His father, Fernand Elphège, was educated as teacher, but worked as a manager of a sugar estate. Eléonore, his mother, was a seamstress. Césaire's family was poor, but his parents invested in the education of their children.

Césaire grew up in Martinique before leaving for Paris to continue his studies. During the time that Césaire grew up in the islands, African identity was something largely absent from both literature and everyday lexicon. While many of the residents of the Caribbean had dark skin and were the descendants of slaves, this heritage was generally regarded as a mark of shame. The dominant trend in society was to distance oneself and the family as far as possible from African origins. This meant speaking the language of the colonising country, France, reading European literature, and attending schools strictly run in the fashion of the colonial country.

At the Lyceé Louis-le-Grand in Paris, Césaire studied African history and culture. It was during this period that he began to realise the need for a redefinition of black consciousness, one which would include reclaiming the history of the people and a strengthened sense of identity, independent of colonial powers.

The prose poem, Return To My Native Land (original in French), which explores themes of self and cultural identity, is the first expression of the concept of Négritude.

Sreelatha

She confessed her love of Urdu poetry and read her translation of Kaifi Azmi’s Aurat, which deals with the wish of the poet that his ideal woman should be on an equal footing with men. Her translation brought out the zeal of the poet well, and the group commended her.

Vijay

In his recent vacation to Mussoorie Vijay tried unsuccessfully to meet Ruskin Bond by walking up to a book store on the Mall, which the writer frequented, three days on the trot. Then he learnt that the poet and story-writer was unwell. The shopkeeper seeing Vijay’s enthusiasm and disappointment at not meeting the poet gifted him with a signed copy of the writer's works – a book of stories and poems. Vijay read Love Lyric for Bindy Devi.

The group expressed surprise to hear Ruskin Bond wrote poetry, but Vijay said that he too learnt about the poetry of the writer from the book. The two poems present a very different side of the author, who is generally known as a writer of children’s stories. Vijay said that Ruskin Bond, a bachelor, was once asked about his love life and he replied, “I keep falling in love.” The poem is honest and true. The soft romance the lines depict seem taken from real life, the group felt, and Gopa said that Priya would love it. Priya agreed completely and asked who wouldn't enjoy such delicate emotions?

Priya

She read poetry related to tea. She chose Chinese tea poems, one classic and one modern. The old Chinese poem by Lu Tong of the Tang Dynasty is well known, she said and the modern one she chanced upon was Love Lyrics of Tea by American Taiwanese writer Dominic Cheung. Tea is not a common subject in modern verse. The moot point in Cheung’s beautiful lines was that the poem is erotic, a charge that Sheila Cherian felt was perverse. Sensuous, yes, but not erotic. Ankush said that the lines, “sink down, to assemble in my depths” was the farthest one could go in classifying the poem as erotic.

The first volume in The Taiwanese Modern Literature Series, Drifting consists of translations from Cheung's collection Drifters, first published in Taipei in 1986. This collection centers upon the metaphors of drifting, in which language and meaning, wander between two worlds, the East and the West, between the private home and a shared country. The metaphor, of course, also brings up the disillusionment with contemporary Taiwanese culture and the seemingly impossible dream of a shared homeland with China. Cheung, a Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, first came to the United States as a graduate student in 1967. He sees himself as an American writing in Chinese, and as both a Chinese poet and an Asian American writer.

About the Poem: Love Lyrics of Tea The act of plain hot water and dried leaves becoming tea together is really rather magical — like sex. The author of this poem insists he meant nothing erotic in his description here; and he ought to know. All the same, the description is both graphic and sensual. It is hard to ignore the implication that two imperfect entities are merging here to become something more, something better than either would ever be alone. Read and make up your own mind. This is not a bad definition of romantic—or, if you prefer, just plain physical—love.

Dominic Cheung graduated from the National Chengchi University in Taiwan, then studied in the US, where he earned his PhD from the University of Washington in 1974. He is the author of many scholarly books and papers and, under the pseudonym of Chang T’so (Zhang Cuo) is a professional poet who has published more than 17 collections of poetry. He is currently Professor of East Asian Languages at the University of Southern California.

Lú Tóng was the secondary sage of tea, after Lù Yǔ, the primary sage of tea. This is one of the most famous tea poems ever, and the Song of Seven Cups is about one quarter to a third of the entire poem Taking Up the Pen to Thank Mèng Jiànyì for Sending New Tea. I suppose the name of the tea vendor, Seven Cups, comes from this poem. If anyone knows of any extant English translations, I'd love to compare. Also please leave comments on how the translation could be bettered. I did not use any work in English, but did refer to some explanatory notes from the two Chinese sources listed below.http://huaib.com/rensheng/7485.html

http://www.7139.com/eduyw/zd/ds/200703/29890.html

The Poems

Talitha Anna Akhmatova

Song of the Last Meeting
My heart was chilled and numb,

But my feet were light.

I fumbled the glove for my left hand

Onto my right.

It seemed there were many steps,

I knew – there were only three.

Autumn, whispering in the maples,

Kept urging: ‘Die with me!

I’m cheated by joylessness,

Changed by a destiny untrue.’

I answered: ‘My dear, my dear!

I too: I’ll die with you.’

The song of the last meeting.

I see that dark house again.

Only bedroom candles burning,

With a yellow, indifferent, flame.

Three things enchanted him
three things enchanted him:
white peacocks, evensong,
and faded maps of America.
he couldn't stand bawling brats,
or raspberry jam with his tea,
or womanish hysteria.
...and he was tied to me.

Gopa Robert Southey
Battle of Blenheim

It was a summer evening,

Old Kaspar's work was done,

And he before his cottage door

Was sitting in the sun,

And by him sported on the green

His little grandchild Wilhelmine.

She saw her brother Peterkin

Roll something large and round

Which he beside the rivulet

In playing there had found;

He came to ask what he had found,

That was so large, and smooth, and round.

Old Kaspar took it from the boy,

Who stood expectant by;

And then the old man shook his head,

And with a natural sigh,

"'Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he,

"Who fell in the great victory.

"I find them in the garden,

For there's many here about;

And often when I go to plough,

The ploughshare turns them out!

For many thousand men," said he,

"Were slain in that great victory."

"Now tell us what 'twas all about,"

Young Peterkin, he cries;

And little Wilhelmine looks up

With wonder-waiting eyes;

"Now tell us all about the war,

And what they fought each other for."

"It was the English," Kaspar cried,

"Who put the French to rout;

But what they fought each other for

I could not well make out;

But everybody said," quoth he,

"That 'twas a famous victory.

"My father lived at Blenheim then,

Yon little stream hard by;

They burnt his dwelling to the ground,

And he was forced to fly;

So with his wife and child he fled,

Nor had he where to rest his head.

"With fire and sword the country round

Was wasted far and wide,

And many a childing mother then,

And new-born baby died;

But things like that, you know, must be

At every famous victory.

"They said it was a shocking sight

After the field was won;

For many thousand bodies here

Lay rotting in the sun;

But things like that, you know, must be

After a famous victory.

"Great praise the Duke of Marlbro' won,

And our good Prince Eugene."

"Why, 'twas a very wicked thing!"

Said little Wilhelmine.

"Nay ... nay ... my little girl," quoth he,

"It was a famous victory."

"And everybody praised the Duke

Who this great fight did win."

"But what good came of it at last?"

Quoth little Peterkin.

"Why, that I cannot tell," said he,

"But 'twas a famous victory."

Thommo W.H. Auden

Partition

Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission,
Having never set eyes on the land he was called to partition
Between two peoples fanatically at odds,
With their different diets and incompatible gods.
"Time," they had briefed him in London, "is short. It's too late
For mutual reconciliation or rational debate:
The only solution now lies in separation.
The Viceroy thinks, as you will see from his letter,
That the less you are seen in his company the better,
So we've arranged to provide you with other accommodation.
We can give you four judges, two Moslem and two Hindu,
To consult with, but the final decision must rest with you."

Shut up in a lonely mansion, with police night and day
Patrolling the gardens to keep the assassins away,
He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate
Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date
And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect
Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot,
And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on the trot,
But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided,
A continent for better or worse divided.

The next day he sailed for England, where he could quickly forget
The case, as a good lawyer must. Return he would not,
Afraid, as he told his Club, that he might get shot. 

Ankush: William Carlos Williams

Lines

Leaves are graygreen,
the glass broken, bright green.

Between Walls

the back wings
of the

hospital where
nothing

will grow lie
cinders

In which shine
the broken

pieces of a green
bottle

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens.

Smell

Oh strong-ridged and deeply hollowed

nose of mine! what will you not be smelling?

What tactless asses we are, you and I, boney nose,

always indiscriminate, always unashamed,

and now it is the souring flowers of the bedraggled

poplars: a festering pulp on the wet earth

beneath them. With what deep thirst

we quicken our desires

to that rank odor of a passing springtime!

Can you not be decent? Can you not reserve your ardors

for something less unlovely? What girl will care

for us, do you think, if we continue in these ways?

Must you taste everything? Must you know everything?

Must you have a part in everything?

Danse Russe

If I when my wife is sleeping

and the baby and Kathleen

are sleeping

and the sun is a flame-white disc

in silken mists

above shining trees,—

if I in my north room

dance naked, grotesquely

before my mirror

waving my shirt round my head

and singing softly to myself:

“I am lonely, lonely.

I was born to be lonely,

I am best so!”

If I admire my arms, my face,

my shoulders, flanks, buttocks

against the yellow drawn shades,—

Who shall say I am not

the happy genius of my household?

Pamela Kamala Das

A Losing Battle

How can my love hold him when the other
Flaunts a gaudy lust and is lioness
To his beast? Men are worthless, to trap them
Use the cheapest bait of all, but never
Love, which in a woman must mean tears
And a silence in the blood.

Sreelatha Chakravarthy Kaifi Azmi

Aurat

Awake my love, you got to march in-step with me

The smell of war-storm blows in the breeze today

Time and destiny wear the same colour of resolve today

Decanters hold liquid lava of molten rocks today

Love and beauty sing-along comrades-in-arms today

The fire I burn in has to set you aflame too

Awake my love, you got to march in-step with me

Life’s purpose is in rebellious death not in calm restraints

Bloody pulse of existence flows not in trembling tears

It is in setting open your tresses to fly not tie up in knot

There is another heaven besides that in your man’s arms

You have to dance along to his mad freestyle beats too

Awake, my love, you got to march in-step with me

In every alley burn sacrificial pyres for you

Ways of life mask as bound labour for you

Your delicate nuances break apocalyptic on you

This World holds poisoned air for you

Change the seasons if you want to bloom and fruit

Awake, my love, you got to march in-step with me

Your worth, as yet, is lost in this world’s dated accounts

You have fiery zeal not just tear-jerker response

You are real entity not just interesting muse for fiction

Your persona is vibrant not just a thing of temptation

You have to register a new chapter in history

Awake, my love, you got to march in-step with me

Break the idols of traditions that you are trapped in

Break free of lure of lust and superstitious frailty

Break out of imagined trance of living in greatness

This is your prison too, living caged as a love-bird

Walk on rocks you must as also trample a rosy path

Awake, my love, you got to march in-step with me

Shatter all myth propagating sermons fostering doubts

Break all chains of holy vows that shackle your feet

Why, this emerald necklace, you must break too

Break free of bombarding male chauvinistic messages

As a tempest you must gather strength and boil over

Awake, my love, you got to march in-step with me

You are Aristotelian philosophy, Venusian Pleiadean beauty

You have the Universe captive and earth at your feet

Quick, rise, raise your forehead from pedestal of fate

Neither will I wait nor will time await your arrival

How long will you walk tottering, get a hold on thee

Awake, my love, you got to march in-step with me

Aurat (Woman) – in Urdu
uth merii jaan mere saath hii chalnaa hai tujhe
qalb-e-mahoul mein larzaan sharar-e-jang hain aaj
hausley waqt ke aur ziist ke yakrang hain aaj
aabgiinon mein tapaan walwale-e- sang hain aaj
husn aur ishq ham aawaaz-o-humaahang hain aaj
jis mein jaltaa huun usi aag mein jalnaa hai tujhe
uth merii jaan mere saath hii chalnaa hai tujhe

zindagii jehad mein hai sabr ke qaabuu mein nahiin
nabz-e-hastii kaa lahuu kaamptii aansuu mein nahii
urne khulne mein hai nakhat kham-e-gesu mein nahiin
jannat aik aur hai jo mard ke pahluu mein nahiin
uskii aazaad ravish par bhii machalnaa hai tujhe
uth merii jaan mere saath hii chalnaa hai tujhe

goshey goshey mein sulagtii hai chitaa tere liye
farz kaa bhes badaltii hai qazaa tere liye
qahar hai terii har narm adaa tere liye
zahar hii zahar hai duniyaa kii havaa tere liye
rut badal daal agar phuulnaa phalnaa hai tujhe
uth merii jaan mere saath hii chalnaa hai tujhe

qadr ab tak terii tarriikh ne jaanii hii nahiin
tujh mein shole bhii hain bas ashkfishaanii hii nahiin
tu haqiiqat bhii hai dilchasp kahaanii hii nahiin
terii hastii bhii hai ik chiiz javaanii hii nahiin
apnii tarrikh kaa unvaan badalnaa hai tujhe
uth merii jaan mere saath hii chalnaa hai tujhe

tod kar rasm ke but bare qadamat se nikal
zof-e-ishrat se nikal, vaham-e-nazaakat se nikal
nafs ke khiinche hue halq-e-azmal se nikal
yeh bhii ek qaid hii hai, qaid-e-muhabbat se nikal
raah kaa khaar hii kyaa gul bhii kuchalnaa hai tujhe
uth merii jaan mere saath hii chalnaa hai tujhe

tod yeh azm-shikan dagdag-e-pand bhii tor
terii khaatir hai jo zanjiir vah saugandh bhii tor
tauq yeh bhii zammruud kaa gulband bhii tor
tod paimana-e-mardaan-e-khirdmand bhii tor
banke tuufaan chhalaknaa hai ubalnaa hai tujhe
uth merii jaan mere saath hii chalnaa hai tujhe

tuu falaatuno-arastuu haii tuu zohraa parviin
tere qabze mein hai garduun, terii thokar mein zamiin
haan, uthaa, jald uthaa paae-muqqadar se jabiin
main bhii rukne kaa nahii waqt bhii rukne kaa nahiin
larkharaayegii kahaan tak ki sambhalnaa hai tujhe
uth merii jaan mere saath hii chalnaa hai tujhe

VijayThe Love of Two Stars

Two stars fell in love. Between them came the sky

And ten moons and two suns riding high,

Before them the nebulous star crusted Way,

The silence of Night, the silver of Day.

A million years passed, the lovers still glowed,

With the brilliance of old and passion of gold;

But one star grew restless and set off at night

With a wonderful shower of hot white light.

He sped to his love, with his hopes and his fears,

But missed her, alas, by a thousand light-years.

Priya Sharma

Love Lyrics of Tea by Dominic Cheung
(translated by Karl Zhang)

1
If I were boiling water
And you were tea leaves,
Then all your fragrance would depend
Upon my lack of taste.

2
Let your shriveling
Loosen up within me and unfold;
Let my infusion
Smoothe the wrinkles from your face

3
We would need to be hot, even boiling
To dissolve inside each other.

4
We would need to hide
Face to face under water, twisting and twining,
In a moment of tea
Before we decide which color to become.

5
No matter how long you might float and swirl
Unstable
Eventually you would
(Oh, gently)
Sink down
To assemble in my depths.

6
In that moment
Your bitterest teardrop
Would become my sweetest
Mouthful of tea.

Song of Seven Cups from the poem Taking Up the Pen to Thank Mèng Jiànyì for Sending New Tea
by Lú Tóng of the Táng Dynasty

One bowl moistens the lips and throat;
Two bowls shatters loneliness and melancholy;
Three bowls, thinking hard, one produces five thousand volumes;
Four bowls, lightly sweating, the iniquities of a lifetime disperse towards the pores.
Five bowls cleanses muscles and tendons;
Six bowls accesses the realm of spirit;
One cannot finish the seventh bowl, but feels only a light breeze spring up under the arms.

Sujatha Warrier Aimé Césaire

Notebook of a Return to the Native Land

my negritude is not a stone

nor deafness flung against the clamor of the day

my negritude is not a white speck of dead water

on the dead eye of the earth

my negritude is neither tower nor cathedral

it plunges into the red flesh of the soil

it plunges into the blazing flesh of the sky

my negritude riddles with holes

the dense affliction of its worthy patience.

Return to My Native Land (Excerpts from the prose poem)

At the end of the small hours: this town, flat, displayed, brought down by its common-sense, inert, breathless under its geometric burden of crosses, forever starting again, sullen to its fate, dumb, thwarted in every degree, incapable of growing as the sap of its earth would have it grow, set upon, gnawed, reduced, cheating its own fauna and flora.

At the end of the small hours: this town, flat, displayed...

And in this town a clamouring crowd, a stranger to its own cry as the town, inert, is a stranger to its own movement and meaning, a crowd without concern, disowning its own true cry, the cry you’d like to hear because only that cry belongs to it, because that cry you know lives deep in some lair of darkness and pride in this disowning town, in this crowd deaf to its own cry of hunger and misery, revolt and hatred, in this crowd so strangely garrulous and dumb.

In this disowning town, this strange crowd which does not gather, does not mingle: this crowd that can so easily disengage itself, make off, slip away. This crowd which doesn’t know how to crowd, this crowd so perfectly alone beneath the sun: this crowd like a woman whose lyrical walk you have noticed but who suddenly calls upon a hypothetical rain and commands it not to fall; or makes the sign of the cross without visible reason; or assumes the sudden grave animality of a peasant woman urinating on her feet, stiff legs apart.

...

At the end of the small hours, this town, flat, displayed . . .

It crawls on its hands without the slightest wish ever to stand up and pierce the sky with its protest. The backs of the houses are afraid of the fire-truffled sky, their foundations are afraid of the drowning mud. Scraps of houses that have settled to stand between shocks and undermining. And yet this town advances. Every day it grazes further beyond the tide of its tiled corridors, shame-faced blinds, sticky courtyards, dripping paintwork. And petty suppressed scandals, petty shames kept quiet and petty immense hatreds knead the narrow streets into lumps and hollows where the gutter pulls a face among the excrement . . .

At the end of the small hours: Life flat on its face, miscarried dreams and nowhere to put them, the river of life listless in its hopeless bed, not rising or falling, unsure of its flow, lamentably empty, the heavy impartial shadow of boredom creeping over the quality of all things, the air stagnant, unbroken by the brightness of a single bird.

At the end of the small hours: another house in a very narrow street smelling very bad, a tiny house with, within its entrails of rotten wood, shelters rats by the dozen and the gale of my six brothers and sisters, a cruel little house whose implacability panics us at the end of every month, and my strange father nibbled by a single misery whose name I’ve never known, my father whom an unpredictable witchcraft soothes into sad tenderness or exalts into fierce flames of anger; and my mother whose feet, daily and nightly, pedal, pedal for our never-tiring hunger, I am even woken by those never-tiring feet pedalling by night and the Singer whose teeth rasp into the soft flesh of the night, the Singer which my mother pedals, pedals for our hunger night and day.

At the end of the small hours, my father, my mother, and over them the house which is a shack splitting open with blisters like a peach-tree tormented by blight, and the roof worn thin, mended with bits of paraffin cans, this roof pisses swamps of rust on to the grey sordid stinking mess of straw, and when the wind blows, these ill-matched properties make a strange noise, like the sputter of frying, then like a burning log plunged into water with the smoke from the twigs twisting away. . . . And the bed of planks on its legs of kerosene drums, a bed with elephantiasis, my grandmother’s bed with its goatskin and its dried banana leaves and its rags, a bed with nostalgia as a mattress and above it a bowl full of oil, a candle-end with a dancing flame and on the bowl, in golden letters, the word MERCI.