A Word For My Father Poem by Mohabeer Beeharry

A Word For My Father



I was born in a village
Between the sea on the right
And near rivers, spooky bamboo groves,
hills and wild flowers on the left.

My father was one of those who dared to dig in there first.
However beautiful the place was,
it ran wild with all kinds of spooky tales and weird bushes
And stories of witchery and ghosts
and eerie noises at night.

They say that once
Run away slaves were caught and brought back there.
It was sad.
No one knows what happened to them.
History had ceased to be written after that.

There were still places, in the bamboo clumps
Where weird arrangements of stones
Like unfinished and abandoned graves.

Strange flowers grew there in the humid and dark shadows
Found nowhere in the country,
Like hibiscus and crocus that returned every April,
That still find their way into my poetry.

The old villagers called thatplace Floreal
The home of flowers.
A lovely name but a paradox too,
With the passing away of the old thinking and traditions
Much had disappeared of the solid values.

Friendship is loose today and unpredictable,
And selfish
Greed and false pretense and false pride
And corruption are ways of life.

An unstinting and inveterate worker
My father was a strong man, daring;
He originated from the last stock of the Indian Aryan
Very light faced and very clear clean eyes,
Not from the fakeinvented Hitler aryan.

From him I learnt the old culture
And spirituality,
that there is a great esoteric meaning behind this life
Only realised when finally the cycles are completed,

that God does not resides in religions
Or belongs to me or you,
All names and all forms are his only.

That good and evil follow us
Beyond the grave
Our inseparable companions.
For the venom that we serve others
always return to us.

Enjoy the sunshine while you may,
He once said to me
It is your rightful share of God's blessings.
Of all things, the holiest is the earth we live and grow on
Be thankful for the harvests.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Kim Barney 23 July 2020

I especially like the part about venom that we serve to others returning to us.

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