My Tanty used to sing/pray
evening ragas to the Earth Goddess
morning oblations to the Sun God
Now my Aunty prays
that I find salvation in the cross
in the church that has freed her
from indenture, from coolieness
Yet I seek freedom
in the indefinable
the OM
the puja breath that expands
my rib cage
with blessed pitchpine smoke
into an oval
large as the cosmic egg
The sea breath
OM
That echoes
In the conch shell
Blowing across the Caroni
Infinite like green plains
Of sugarcane
Or a milky river veiling
The face of the goddess
Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming (born 1960) Trinidad and Tobago
Source: Zócalo Poets
Poet’s glossary:
- Coolieness: East Indian Indentured Labourers who were brought to the West Indies, and their descendents are sometimes called ‘coolie’, as an insult. In my poem, ‘Coolieness’ refers to the East Indian culture that still exists in Trinidad and Tobago.
- Puja (Bhojpuri Hindi): A personal, familial, or public Hindu prayer service or worship.
- Caroni: A river in Trinidad and Tobago. The river plains, called the Caroni Plains were once used for sugar cane farming.
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