Disco with Spirits

 

I don’t readily tell this tale

For it is as strange as strange can be

Few find it right to believe

For such sights in waking daylight

Our flesh eyes never ever see.

But can we say with certainty

That something isn’t true

Just because our eyes weren’t near

To examine its shape or size

When before us it grew.  

I lived in those days

Beside a forest in a wooden bungalow

Between the wood and my residence

Flowed a river languidly

The water glazed a glassy glow.

In the mid of the moonless nights

When the village voices were silent

An eerie music rose from the stream

And beats of drums and *nagadas

With strains of chorus were consistent

As my heart from childhood was

Crazy for music and dance

I was drawn often to the forest floor

The ring surrounded by shadowy trees

As if pulled by a trance

Matching my steps with

Spirit figures on the rustling leafy floor

My eyes sometime fell on the trees

That floated like ballerinas on rinks

Only it was an unvisited, unplowed moor

The woody disco halted

When the eastern stars to west bent

The DJ and the dancers dashed behind the screen

As the first owl howled, not a rooster

The misty music fell silent

You wouldn’t believe the tale

I don’t expect, we are of material fold

There’s a world beside ours hidden

Perhaps we’ll be citizens there                              

After we cross the threshold

*Nagada = a bowl-shaped percussion instrument

                     giving loud base sound when hit with weighty sticks

Xavier Bage

Thurs, March 31, 2016