My host slammed his bottle of Guinness export down on the table. Its viscous body swayed. He took a long drag from a cigarette and directed the exhale at a ceiling fan. The opium damaged Indian tapped his fingers on the table thinking. His eyes shot upward, observing the smoke being churned by the fan. I looked at him as if expecting a response, but he continued to gaze at the fan and none came.I peered through the thin layer of smoke and made my move on the chessboard in front of me. A broad yet friendly looking American took in my move, resting his hands on the table to consider its consequences. Our host spoke.
‘I can’t get weed, but maybe Opium?’ I shook my head. The American made his move on the chessboard. I considered my options. The host responded to a hum on his phone, then a buzz from the front door. The door creaked and opened, a broad, tattooed, Chinese man entered the room, and casually began counting out large wads of money on the table I was seated at. He discussed recovering gambling winnings in English to our Indian host, who then made a hand gesture, the two of them promptly switched to a quiet conversation in Chinese.
I got up, walked to the fridge, and took out a beer. I gestured to the American who nodded, I took out a second for him. I sat back down at the table and opened the two beers. I took a sip, the beer was cool and satisfying in the pulsing midday heat.
The daytime activity of Melaka could be heard washing in through the glassless windows. A complex mix of languages engaging in a variety of trade and business.A cacophony of vehicles, new, old and very old, and of course the occasional tourist.
With the sunrise and call for azan each morning, Alia set out with her milk pail. She didn’t walk four miles to the shepherd anymore.
Nobody knew her secret.
Maybe Iqbal did. He squabbled that she didn’t do his Maths homework anymore.
She went townwards, where a crystal river threaded beside her path, down the darkened mountainside. Orbs of faint light would begin to tear patches and glow through the dark of her hometown’s heavens.
She came on his street.
A knock on her teacher’s shuttered door let her slip inside, and her pail was poured to brink with the milk can kept inside.
Thus, she was free of her whereabouts for another hour.
Then he smiled or made a pun, if she looked too frightened.
As Alia hurtled from home, each morning, she felt like her pulse was threatening to burst through her chest. Her relief thawed the icy fear, only once she was inside. Once Alia saw his good humoured face, she could do it. Breathe out the danger.
Nobody knew about the studying either.
The books.
In this valley, it wouldn’t be allowed.
There was an outhouse in his backyard. A closet sized room, that smelled of books. One kerosene lamp hung down a wire. He would reach into his closet, fingers grasping through the stacks of books, and pull out her copy.
There was a rug too.
A rectangular table with peeling paint and an underside with scrawled curse words and symbols, from the boys he taught in evening. But for Alia, it was the closet that held the magic.
You see, it made candied almonds and nuts appear, whenever she was particularly good.
So they’d sit down and begin. When the sums got too hard, the laughter and jokes at each other’s expense helped.
I take you with two hands, grip your sloughing shoulders,
your tarry taste and destructive tongue.
I take out what has entered, send it back to the void
and that line of heritage it travelled upon.
I fill the empty pocket with light, first mending it with
the tender-thread of God and the sharp-point of truth.
I iron-gate the place where it left and pour a concrete wall.
I bless this house. I clear the corners, the ceiling, floorboards.
I call the Buddha that was born with you to reawaken,
for my army of angels to lift up their swords. We are
still here. We are love, and love
is the centre, the carriage and the tide,
never defeated, stronger than the frantic pulse,
stronger than the wielding axe and the ash of its remains,
stronger than this cursed person you wear and claim,
strongest now in this hopeless hardened place,
in this choice, beginning.
Part 2
Step, bless your
new shoes, step and
hold the sun on your tongue like a berry,
leaving an indelible juicy mark,
be guided by other people’s wisdom
as long as it doesn’t undermine your own
and watch yourself enter Eden-Earth in its many glorious
forms – dive into small mounds of sand, pieces of glass,
spiraling trees, trunks, bulging and retracting in individual rhythm,
a solid movement, stunning as music.
Take this choice from disaster,
offer it the path of the impossible, a pathway into
a miracle because God counts for everything,
counts on flat and hot surfaces,
counts on the deathbed and
in the red coat
beautiful gleam
Part 3
The way forward is
the way back, clearing
stumbling blocks that promise
to repeat ahead if not killed
at their source.
To hold the truth even if it tells you
that love is limited in people, certain people
who play both sides – one foot in the basin of heaven
and the other glorifying the haphazard world.
Even if it tells you you cannot save
or be saved by a half-hearted account of kindness,
tells you, it is nothing
to be bitter over, nothing personal and also
not yours to bear the repercussions,
tells you to continue all the way, hold firm
to the thin road and the willingness to lose everything –
home, sacred room, the safety of your own –
for the divine request to follow. Follow then
the tulips
still managing to bud in backyards untended,
follow then with God at the helm.
You are not abandoned, not like the tin-foil wrapper,
or the chewing gum chewed,
or worn-through undergarments. You are protected
and that protection is warm and powerful and golden
as an owl’s steady eyes. You are afraid I know.
The doors you used to knock on are
boarded up. Steel eyes lock on you, mock you in your anguish.
It feels ruthless, brutally barren,
feels that way only until you fully let go.
I let go. I drop my past, my precious cargo, drop you
and follow, hearing faint the voice that tells me –
The only thing I have to do to receive God’s love
is to believe in God’s love.
Allison Grayhurst is a member of the League of Canadian Poets. Four times nominated for Sundress Publications “Best of the Net”, 2015/2017, she has over 1125 poems published in over 450 international journals. She has fifteen published books of poetry, six collections and nine chapbooks. She lives in Toronto with her family. She is a vegan. She also sculpts, working with clay; www.allisongrayhurst.com
