Yusef Komunyakaa – Sept 14, Iyengar II & I

Thinking about journey’s as I prepare to get on a plane at the end of next week. I haven’t flown in almost two years, something I used to think was ordinary, now feels like an adventure! I thought this piece was beautiful, plus I’d never heard of a fish skin drum.

WITH MY FISH-SKIN DRUM

I shall sing the caravan home again,

bone & muscle holding me together,

earth & sky beneath my feet,

my fingers on the tabla, a red lotus

opening into the Great Rift Valley

till I am called to the reed boats.

I shall sing the whiskered tern's

lament I stole for occidental nights

as villagers walk toward big cities.

The caravan swallows the dust

of those before, woven into a dance

caught in a glow of night fires,

& I hold to my drum, waking voices

under the singing skin, the shish & tap

of fish skin on waters of a lost road.