The Building of Future Ruins

[dr_con]

The Building of Future Ruins
#deepadaption 4/17/2019

The little brown and white
ceramic dog looks forlornly
Into emptiness notice black 
feet and crutch ends their 
jagged ankled edges remains 
of a once proud Saint Lazarus
(no the other one) the one
who dances with Oya and
takes the goods of those 
touched by plague the kind
of god who starts disease 
In anger ends with healing 
and love

Gave his statue (rather its
absence) a beer today
needing to celebrate 
rebirth and Spring
as much as

we need to celebrate
the Winter Solstice
And the promise
of the Returning Light

despite all the offerings
and ablutions protective
beats and cacophonic
prayers 
                  he shattered
          due to events
                  better left unsaid

reminding us 
All and Everything
only a future ruin

              Hekua Baba Hekua!
              from destruction

always return
Hekua Baba hekua!
hekua baba hekua
hekua Baba
hekua.

 

 

[Tinker]

Juris,  This one had me googling all over the place and I still don't understand.  Did you know that when you google   Hekua baba, your poem pops up as the first thing you see?

I like the way this is structured and the ending chant.   There is so much I don't know about.

~~Tink

[dr_con]

That's hilarious! I think we need to add a category of 'Google Poetry' -- Not just because people have to google things, but often I google to get correct spellings etc. I looked up Hekua, since it comes from a brazilian praise song for Omolu also known as Babalu Aye (Think Ricky Ricardo;-)  I know the song ut the first spelling I found was Hekua, so yup, add me to the list of the many things I don't know;-)

 

Juris

[David W. Parsley]

Hi doc,

A worthy production in a body of such outpourings that you have managed to accomplish during this month of daily poetry.  Impressive, to say the least!  I don't know how you and Tinker are doing it, really.  Nice work.

Regarding the closing refrain, the closest I could come was to a synthetic religious sect that developed in southern regions of the Americas, where the phrase, "Hekua, baba, hekua!" translates roughly as, "Blessings, father, blessings!"  There are connections to an osira (roughly, a deity) who both imposes and rescinds heinous diseases like smallpox, but I could not follow this well without at least a partial immersion in the topic which I declined to undertake.  This capstones the early stanzas dealing with this theme, playing the universal chant of the perplexed body of victim and bereaved trying to comprehend forces that lead us without discernible reason or cause to slaughter and/or personal loss, hoping to attract a benevolence or obscure kind of judgement which will in turn grant a reprieving stay.  The piece taps into a timeless human element intersecting with a broader spiritual impulse that guides and misguides our journey in aggregate as well as individually.

BTW, I note the word abulition - did you intend ablution?  Or is this a specialist's jargon, perhaps even a doc-invented term?  (One never knows!)

Thanks,

- Dave

[dr_con]

D avid thanks for the catch, indeed ablution;-) And yes, that's my Baba 'Omolu' 25 years now;-) And the point of inspiration was an old broken Saint Lazarus Satue that used to sit in our SF Integral Voodoo Terrero, Now just the feet. TY for taking the time to analyze;-) Juris