Bramah and the Beggar Boy
Page 10
lineups, designated areas:
Tower Juniper, Tower Cedar, Tower Ambrosia.
Inside, a young girl,
her name forgotten,
no one calls her, she is never spoken to—
Small build, dexterous, black hair,
eyes slanted at their corners.
She never laughs, head bent most times—
She builds things. She calls them Finds. Her teeth, bones, unexamined.
Afternoons the heat: dust, that acrid curtain,
wind whips red, she finds places inside culverts where no streams,
fingers fast into hoarded, stolen, saved:
her six-wheeled machine, scrapped aluminum,
prized at the site, where once Safeway,
The Battle of Kingsway, a song—
Fireside, she calls her toy, no one around curious enough to ask—
Unnamed, without words, her fingers tap, pause, dot . dash –
Long miles away, further down the coast,
at Consortium Lab KTS: the designers study data,
fascinated, curious and excited. All their codes.
The Old Oak Box, Gone!
Wait, said Bramah, I must rest for otherwise I might faint
And eeriness comes over me, she said
Her black braid glistening in the candlelight
Crouched beneath the crooked lip of that cave
The Beggar Boy ran his fingers over words
The slant of them! Each stroke and lift and sphere.
His eyes never leaving the face of Bramah:
her tears brushed aside and then the oak box—
locked, carried, hidden, stolen, found again.
That morning when we awoke, all things changed:
the oak box gone; the tattered scroll of stories,
disappeared.
The two of them wide-eyed, hearts pounding fast.
Drones overhead, lights flashing and a voice
Consortium commandeering return
Quick, cried Bramah, stay close to me and run—
Hiding Out with the Night Stitcher
Seamstress of dreams, butterfly-catcher, tied
string, pieces of felt, pounded, shaped into
memories, made whole: tie that bit, wrists, ankles
Translate your discoveries, she’d call as
her east wind sang through dry cracked houses where
room after room, empty, save mirrors: they’d
run only to, and never, not once—
she told them they’d better avoid the house
where in a circle sat the oldest crones—
gender-indeterminate, lipstick smeared
some chemical compound from the Before:
Time an equation: they knew to travel
years to find that oak door, gold-embossed crest
Run, cried Bramah, arrows stinging her chest.
Bramah Tells the Beggar Boy She Must Leave
Oak, and throw down: split acorns
The Beggar Boy runs to catch and hold.
Catalpa, pendulous green overhangs
The Beggar Boy trips and falls. Gets up again.
Cedar, scent remembering-forgetting, sent—
The Beggar Boy, panting, rubs his ankle.
Elderberry, a cordial, goblets of fire—
Bramah’s aim is true. Down the guards and up they go.
Linden, that long avenue, shaded.
On horseback and in tanks, unrelenting.
Laurel, that time of the heroes return.
Bramah binds and carries and finds the spot.
Bramah wipes away blood from her shoulder.
Oak and cedar. The Beggar Boy fights back tears.
Bramah tells the boy: Find your name, son.
Midnight, years later, eons forward, you’ll
run tundra, you will fall to your knees, still.
Get up! Run to the Gate of the Winter Portal.
Find the boys who sing,
Until the rains arrive, and we survive
Until—
Bramah Remembers a Lullaby
Ice-fed, wet yarns felted, a loom of stars:
In the hour before sunrise, three ribbons
They will come to you, as I am singing:
Winged tapestry—tied strings, salvaged pieces—
Divining wheel, a thousand threads entwined.
Your name golden brown, you will snap, pin, tie
hidden: cascara girl: camas, birch, pine.
Woman, seated at a bench, soft cloth pulled—
Woman on a platform waiting, eastbound
time to touch, that absence fastened, cast-off
before every door, every key thrown, every gate locked,
forward, backward, a thousand needles cleaned
your hands in the Before-Time, thread to loom:
your eyes sparkling, our names cut and held.
Bramah’s Secret
What is your name? With me always.
તમારું નામ શું છે?
Tamāruṁ nāma śuṁ chē?
What is this? This knowing lodged beneath my heart
આ શું છે Ā śuṁ chē ? Another journey to the past
Who will stitch my seams,
કોણ મારી સીમ ટાંકો કરશે?
Kōṇa mārī sīma ṭāṅkō karaśē? To find my story
Bind my wounds,
મારા ઘાવને કોણ બાંધશે?
Mārā ghāvanē kōṇa bāndhaśē? I am leaving, I am leaving
coda Goodbye, little Beggar Boy— My heart aches
મારા હૃદયમાં દુખાવો થાય છે
Mārā hr̥dayamāṁ dukhāvō thāya chē
(mara boh dukh che)
Many Miles to Cross
And this loneliness: we whispered the song
and this anger, held. We engraved letters—
And this shame, we wove a cloak, white feathers
invisible to the Outside World, yet
barbed points dug, stuck sharp, meeting skin, our hands.
When Bramah turned away from the Portal,
she saw for the last time, that Beggar Boy.
All these years, she called to him, receding,
I’ve never learned your name! He smiled at her.
He turned into that dark alleyway, waved—
Then ran to catch up to Grandmother and
somewhere along that long passage, boys sang,
Right as rain, good as new,
jumped the fence, you should too—
Un coup de dés, jamais, jamais——
The Investigator
Today I found a diary, black leather.
Inside, cream-coloured pages: and this note—
My dear Aunty, take this beggar girl.
Yesterday’s arrest: a yield of two boys.
The one with the gap-toothed smile has proven—
uncooperative.
In any case, I shall find that satchel,
those tools will be traced and that old oak box.
Can it be on nights of no moon, restless
the Investigator tosses and turns
never one to admit fear he’ll not say
words heard on the cusp of a southeast wind:
Whosoever finds us, with a kind heart.
Whosoever drops us, they’ll always part.
Bring us a cloth to varnish, bring us jade
All your gold and rubies, in us, never fade.
We’ll bring you a story, and then disappear.
Lift us, don’t drag us, you’ll never know fear.<
br />
At the Chapel of the Stone Aunties
Masked boys, arms branded, the air dangerous,
dropped, no one to dare breathe, not ever our spells
could save our girl, her name whispered, snow deep
drifts knee high, against the wind we trudged.
We added the names of dead scientists.
Brigades of children marched tower to wall.
Not even our old magic to protect
shawls worn threadbare, we wrapped ourselves up tight.
Have you ever seen our stone faces bleed?
Freedom fighter, terrorist, who’s right, wrong?
We just want enough to eat, been so long.
Not any one of our years over one hundred
could rise and help them, in their time of need.
The Last Song at the End of the Known World
Once upon a time, there lived a young girl.
Her hair glossy black, her skin honey brown.
Lost, those faraway hills.
That blue ocean. Snow-capped peaks.
Diving, the girl touched depths, then up, up to sunlight.
And fast, she ran away—all around her,
faint echoes ringing, those Beggar Boys singing,
Right as rain, good as new,
Jumped the fence, you should too—
Jumped the fence, you should too—
At Perimeter’s Edge
Evening drops down blue-black
two moons rise bright and clear
only a ragtag bunch of beggar children
huddled against Consortium’s Wall:
Before Guards move them along
before the drones blare out curfew orders
before the night patrol scan, in armoured tanks:
There’s our Bramah, gone with the sea.
She’s tumbled Portals, looking for her tree.
There’s our doctor, she’s good and dead.
Wrapped up her chalice, knocked off her head.
Hey Aunty Agatha, where’s your little girl?
Hey Grandma find us; we’ll swirl you a secret
that little Beggar Boy’s not who you think
to market, to market, Consortium stinks.
Hey Aunty Agatha, weave us our fates—
Hey Aunty Agatha, threshold to gate—
Part Two
Abigail Discovered
Ruin, a Map for Perimeter
Long lines shuffling past bombed buildings, ice shards
piercing the skin against a fierce north wind.
Inside, the Guards of the Fifth Gate roll dice.
Outside, children dart between drifts of snow.
Freedom fighter, terrorist, who’s right, wrong?
We just want enough to eat, been so long.
On a hill rising, Perimeter wolves.
Midnight, that second moon shining silver
Winter Portal, blasted open—
Upright Douglas fir, furrowed mature bark
split open with fungi, gigantic spores.
Covert, we scrape samples, only no one
left to test or measure; we search anyway
brown cones, deformed tips; our hands hold hidden
each, a message, we share on pain of death
On the highway, on the run, we gather
we take apart each conifer’s gift
scale by scale, to the seed, 2057—
After Curfew, Those Street Sweepers Sing
After Aunty Pandy swept us all up
Consortium Minders stood in a row:
hand to hand: one ice cube, dropped left and right,
paper to paper, dry towel to wet—
melt! The heat from our hands leaving our skin:
they taught us hydrogen on the outside,
shivering, our breath in puffs, they taught us
bond to bond breaking, trapped crystals in space.
Sugar and salt, our bellies stayed empty.
Sugar and salt, our cracked lips licked sharp rocks.
These schoolyards in snowdrifts, these doors all locked:
Come, Bramah, with your golden pick and key.
Come, Bramah, with your Pippin File, your drill.
Crack open doorways, save us from all ill.
The Four Aunties of the Wishing Well
—said Aunty Agatha:
First frost, stay apart, you’ll live to see the—
withered grasses, falling leaves, use your sleeve.
My scissors, sharp; six honey pot smears.
—said Aunty Tabitha:
Cotton scraps, nylon bits, pull your fraying quilts.
First frost, stay apart, you’ll live to see the—
summer breezes, soft as silk, red dawn, running.
—said Aunty Magda:
river water dwelling, wood ash in lime
copper thimbles carried, beech twigs in brine
withered grasses, falling leaves, use your sleeve.
—said Aunty Maria:
my seed jars all stolen, my masons, gone
Find me sand and find me pressed salal leaves.
First frost, stay apart, you’ll live to see the—
As Heard on the Albion Ferry
There’s our Aunty Agatha never gets old
There’s our Little Abigail brown and gold
Where’s the good doctor, where is her chalice?
Consortium killed her, so much malice
Bramah’s gone and left us, nary a trace
Oh Little Abigail, who will you chase?
There’s our Aunt Agatha huddled in red
There’s a north wind blowing, over the dead
There’s the old Ferryman, sing him a tune
He’ll not charge you coin; he’ll call up the Moon
There’s our Aunt Agatha digging a trench
She’ll bury that hammer under a bench
The river freezes, she’s warm underneath
Tidal her messages, cast on the beach
There’s our Aunt Agatha huddled in red
A handful of nieces, so it is said
A is for Abigail found at the door
B is for Bramah who loves her the more——
Blow you North Wind, your ice crystals cut deep
Bide with our Aunty, she’ll sing you to sleep.
Found Pinned to a Far Wall, Perimeter’s Edge
They watched us eat, small bites, the food to last
our confinement measured in months, then years.
To ban vegetables, except as grown by
Consortium: stamped and wrapped, GMO.
To note percentage change, temperature.
A clandestine activity. Science refused.
To begin in gardens, those TFWs——
Those Beggar Boys, sidestepping mechanics.
To water with amounts found, the rains, then
to marvel: succulents, gloss of outer skin.
Months later, forbidden to notice, so
we invented charts, refrains for the mind.
Outside Perimeter, those Beggar Boys
singing Toxic Breeze! Don’t you dare breathe, don’t——
Found: One Oak Box. Locked.
Said the Investigator:
Guards, get me that locksmith, bring me her tools.
Said the Guards:
She’s nowhere to be found.
Said the Investigator:
Blow it up, then.
They tried every explosive.
Nothing worked.
That old oak box sat without a singe.
Only one hinge bent, enough to pry open:
Here is what they found inside:
Stained Parchment, Engraved
These preserved words——as recited at noon:
Our inherita
nce: our family farm, landed
the years a generation———before the Great Culling
our chickens in their cages penned,
a thousand tubers tilled.
Our workers masked,
still got ill.
All through the night incendiary bombs falling
our windows shattered; our phone lines cut.
Outside, our children ran amok, seeking
quick, shelter, shattered timber beams falling
acres of dust, straw thrown up and falling
we heard their chants turned rough, turned crying, Help!
Mocked by young boys, armed by Guards of the Fifth:
IED baby, your bombs, our arms, boom!
IED baby, inside, outside, boom!
Cotton Scrap, Embroidered