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Gris-Gris
Dibyasree Nandy
O Sweet Boy I’ll never see again
Wrenched from my breast
Around your thin neck, I’ve fastened this gris-gris
Singing of my fondness till your chains are loosened one day.
Wrenched from my breast
With white-hot precision as coarse as a coconut bark in a summer dry
Singing of my fondness till your chains are loosened one day
Remember my legacy when all seems dark, my child of the fading twilight.
With white-hot precision as coarse as a coconut bark in a summer dry
I’ve penned poems of love in a pouch for you to bear away
Remember my legacy when all seems dark, my child of the fading twilight
On the horizon, onyx eyes fixated.
I’ve penned poems of love in a pouch for you to bear away
May it guide, shield, usher in a better day
On the horizon, onyx eyes fixated
Find me across the seas, if you can someday, when the sun peers from the west.
May it guide, shield, usher in a better day
This gris-gris of a fortune golden
Find me across the seas, if you can someday, when the sun peers from the west
My son of the shadow, darker than the hour before first light.
Gris-gris is a Caribbean Creole word of French origin that refers to a drawstring bag with written papers in them, usually acting as a good luck charm, popular in the late 1600s during the days of transatlantic slavery. This poem is a pantoum, a form which originated in Malaysia.
Dibyasree Nandy
O Sweet Boy I’ll never see again
Wrenched from my breast
Around your thin neck, I’ve fastened this gris-gris
Singing of my fondness till your chains are loosened one day.
Wrenched from my breast
With white-hot precision as coarse as a coconut bark in a summer dry
Singing of my fondness till your chains are loosened one day
Remember my legacy when all seems dark, my child of the fading twilight.
With white-hot precision as coarse as a coconut bark in a summer dry
I’ve penned poems of love in a pouch for you to bear away
Remember my legacy when all seems dark, my child of the fading twilight
On the horizon, onyx eyes fixated.
I’ve penned poems of love in a pouch for you to bear away
May it guide, shield, usher in a better day
On the horizon, onyx eyes fixated
Find me across the seas, if you can someday, when the sun peers from the west.
May it guide, shield, usher in a better day
This gris-gris of a fortune golden
Find me across the seas, if you can someday, when the sun peers from the west
My son of the shadow, darker than the hour before first light.
Gris-gris is a Caribbean Creole word of French origin that refers to a drawstring bag with written papers in them, usually acting as a good luck charm, popular in the late 1600s during the days of transatlantic slavery. This poem is a pantoum, a form which originated in Malaysia.