Kumina (by Kamau Brathwaite)

Kumina (by Kamau Brathwaite)

1                       on the first day
2           of yr death it is quiet it is dormant like a doormat
3           no one-foot touch its welcome. its dust on the floor
4           is not disturb nor are the sleeping spirits of this house
5         i sit here in this chair trying to unravel Time so that it
6              wouldn’t happen twine
7                     on the second day
8                    of yr death. i break a small
9                                  bread
10            i can still smell the sweet flour of yr firstborn flesh
11                         on the third day
12          of yr death. the water in my urine turn to blood
13          i cover the waterfront of the mirror w/a blue cloth
14              where yr face stood
15                on the fourth day
16     yu shd be rising. knocking at the door of
17               darkness. coming back to me
18       i do not hear yr call
19               on the fifth day
20   after yr death. a young white rooster. white white
21            white feathery & shining tail & tall
22   neigbour of sound from miles away in the next village
23           stands in the yard & from his red crown crows &
24             crows & will not go away
25         he struts round to the back-a-wall
26         his one eye clicking as he crows
27         comes to the glissen of my window & he crows
28         loud like the overflowing voice of my Trelawny
29               waterfall
30       on the sixth day
31           after yr death. there is this silence of flowers
32     their petals say their shining needs
33       soft water needs
34                  sweeet showers needs
35                  sweet rain from heaven
36                      •
37       i see them once again inside the chapel of my funeral
38       on the seventh day
39             after yr death. the yellow flour
40           in the cup-cakes in the kitchen have gone sour
41         there is an eye of rancid in the middle of their meal
42         i am unhappy like the wind & tides are restless rivers
43          i can’t find you. i can’t find you. i cannot cannot
44            cannot be console to dreams
45     the mad dogs of the pasture kill the cock & pillage
46     it. madwoman wind is scattering white screaming
47        feathers’ petals’ pedals over all
48       the brunt and burnin ochre-colour land
49               on the eiate day
50 after yr death me do nothin. nothin. nothin. i can’t even get yr
51      inglish ‘eighth’ spelt straight
52              on the nine /ff night
53            yu rise again from off the dead
54          •
55  i see you now & at the hour of yr o not soff not soffly
56                dead
57         it is my pain it is my privilege • it is my own torn flesh
58               torn fresh
59          o let me comfort us my chile • is not yr heart is
60               broken
61on this tenth day
62i haffe go down to the Station today to find out
63what they doin about yr det. about the ‘accident’
64dem call it. bout the black-hearted man who a-kill
65yu. an whe dem hide yu body
66and po. lice who dealin w/ this case they cannot look me in the lips
67and No One kno
68whe the boy is or gone or when he will come-back
69ten time dis ten dem mek me up & down & book & fourt
70to fine my sun. an ten ten time dem ave no ansa for me for me for me
71in dis dry-weatha tunda
72dem seh because i poor & have no book to haul-out
73inside dis station. an i inn got no song
74to sing becau i colour in dis Marcus Garvey country proud an strong
75an wrong – yu sun gone out & still you colour wrong.
76inn got no i say song
77i wonda whe Port Royal is. when de eart goin again goin crack
78my daughta Ingriid walk beside me hurt
79an strong an dress in black
80her face inside she face int mekkin sport
81on the tenth night after a long long distance silence
82i born into this world w/ nothing but my breath & my bare back an hornets
83in my chess
84now i will haffe doubt if god is good & black & honesty
85wha good good do fe me?
86whe god dat cricket midnight criminal when Mark of god get call like dat & kill
87Mark cyaan dead so if good. if god
88my breath give birt to good like god
89my sun dis gold is all my riches that cannot be replace
90an suddenly me cannot fine him in dis place before dis good god face to face
91wha good fe god. no god. what good. wha god. no god
92if good Mark have no face to face dis god inside dis good god place
93                       on the eleventh day after he dead
94          [Silence]
95                     on the twelfth day
96after yr debt – o pickney – it is as if me cyaan wake up
97         Time has been drain from all my clocks. the sky is
98                      overcyas & lock
99                    altho it isn’t rainin yet
100                                                                       [Silence]
101     this night we hold our wake. watch w/ the spirit of my
102                      sum before his daily funeral
103     • people cook food bring bread & drink & there’s some
104                       singing
105        of the old traditions by the older folks & country
106                              citizens
107     but they soon fall to arguing and they soon fall down
108                           to quarrellin
109             about the words the phrases time & tempo of these
110                   sookey tunes
111       it seem they isolated in the old traditions in these
112                     coffee hills
Publication Notes
Kamau Brathwaite, Born to Slow Horses (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2005). " target="_blank">This poem is reproduced on the Griffin Prize Web Site (from the winning volume on the 2006 International Shortlist).
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2011