Celebrating
Published:Sunday | June 21, 2020 | 12:00 AM
“Any man can be a father, but it takes a special person to be a dad”, goes an adage, a poignant reminder that merely fathering a child does not make one a father in the real sense. It is about shouldering responsibilities and caring and nurturing one’s children. Today, as we celebrate Father’s Day, this is a tribute to the men who despite challenges and roadblocks have and continue to be pillars of support for their children. To celebrate, today’s edition of Arts and Education is dedicated to fathers across the world. Happy Father’s Day all! Amitabh Sharma, coordinator, Arts and Education.
Meeting Ground - going an extra mile to be a dad
For the 2020 Father’s Day edition, Meeting Ground presents poetry from New Zealand and Jamaica on fatherhood. Happy Father’s Day from the curators, Ann-Margaret (Jamaica) and Shane (New Zealand).
Between Two Harbours: Poem for My Father
Portage Road stretches between two harbours.
You are here. Sun’s on the face of the deep.
Small green volcanoes rise like tsunami waves.
Clouds darken, rain-slicked, and unreef.
A lizard ladders up a wall. A wing tip turns.
An ant strives along a concrete pavement.
Wind bounces through pinnacles of tall trees.
Dazzled traffic waits at lights in trapped shoals,
stopped by red beneath three-masted clouds
that pass fast as bows of racing schooners.
Windscreen wipers fend off rain-slick blur,
but it swims anyway in my green realm.
Showers skip or slide over hulls of cars.
Sea’s an echo sounder for Auckland’s shells.
Absolute abba abba, the sun, drowned
into this world, rose, daylight before dark,
to become a ship drawn by the grateful dead,
of whom . . . I swallow this bitter medicine.
Saltwater shawls fall. Tears, spray and foam
curl gold and grey to scud as veils of wet,
running down reflections in corroded chrome.
Wraiths I pursue till sightless with my heart.
Your spirit walked north across the brine —
so home the sailor, the airman home for tea.
With isthmus for compass, skies are clearing,
full-sail blue, like proud regatta clippers.
Dolphins breach in arabesques to tumble
through bubble towers lit up. Dungeon
torches burn with green flames at depth.
Aureoles crown absinthe’s sorrow.
From seaweed tangles I woke this morning.
Flying boat engines chatter their reverie.
White terns are wind-swept in accelerando.
In slow formations of gulls that follow,
I trace your wake on echoes of the sea.
David Eggleton (Poet Laureate of New Zealand)
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For a Son
Watching you swell
your mother’s womb, only a crude
connection seemed to make itself.
Watching your mother swell, with having you,
taught tenderness, for she
while growing you was all my care,
happy as she rounded.
Even alive and howling clear
you seemed a thing your mother had.
But you yourself I learnt
could make me feel – maybe your laugh,
that warm primordial gurgle, did it:
your personal self enjoined my love,
tying our lives as with the living cord.
Be strong my bond and my release
from time. Be tall, stretch separate; and know
the love you’ve nourished though you may not care.
Mervyn Morris (Former Poet Laureate, Jamaica) Peeling Orange Collected Poems Carcanet: 2017
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Coda
(note to self for son)
Giggle.
See the joke in spillage.
Elevate the silly.
Exalt the small.
Allow the wind its rampage.
Assume – but only grandly.
Speak like bravo and gusto
are words in your tongue.
August is waning.
Days will lose flavour.
Pepper will be lost.
Colin Channer (Jamaican in the US)
( Coda is the last section of the poem Fugue in Ten Movements taken from Channer’s first poetry book: Providential: Peepal Tree Press 2015)
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The Flight of Kahu
See the black hawk in flight
Watch her ascend into evening
No friend of a company of fools
She rocks and rolls her wings of granite
She will spot your thoughts in a second
Then poetic call
A cry heard south of the river of ice and grit
She has cast her net and stars appear
I dreamt my father told me
Of the tiny black hawk, Kahu and
How to see it
‘with your eyes’ he said laughing
I look at the crimson sunset and say
Tomorrow will be a good day
Shane Hollands (New Zealand)
My father, Michael Hollands was a musician and inventor, inventing fridge magnets and recording the second electric guitar song in New Zealand. I am a devoted father of two sons who live with me - Shane
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Reggae Fi Dada
galang dada
galang gwaan yaw sah
yu nevah ad noh life fi live
jus di wan life fi give
yu did yu time pan ert
yu nevah get yu jus dizert
galang goh smile inna di sun
galang goh satta inna di palace af peace
o di waatah
it soh deep
di waatah
it soh daak
an it full a hawbah shaak
di lan is like a rack
slowly shattahrin to san
sinkin in a sea af calimity
where fear breed shadows
dat lurks in di daak
where people fraid fi waak
fraid fi tink fraid fi taak
where di present is haunted by di paas
a deh soh mi bawn
get fi know bout staam
learn fi cling to di dawn
an wen mi hear mi daddy sick
mi quickly pack mi grip an tek a trip
mi nevah have noh time
wen mi reach
fi si noh sunny beach
wen mi reach
jus people a live in shack
people livin back-to-back
mongst cackroach an rat
mongst dirt an dizeez
subjek to terrorist attack
political intrigue
kanstant grief
an noh sign af relief
o di grass
turn brown
soh many trees
cut doun
an di lan is owevahgrown
fram country to toun
is jus tissel an tawn
inna di woun a di poor
is a miracle how dem endure
di pain nite an day
di stench af decay
di glarin sights
di guarded affluence
di arrogant vices
cowl eyes af kantemp
di makin symbals af independence
a deh soh mi bawn
get fi know bout staam
learn fi cling to di dawn
an wen di news reach mi
seh mi wan daddy ded
mi ketch a plane quick
an wen mi reach mi sunny isle
it woz di same ole style
di money well dry
di bullits dem a fly
plenty innocent a die
many rivahs run dry
ganja planes flyin high
di poor man him a try
yu tink a likkle try him try
holdin awn bye an bye
wen a dallah cyaan buy
a likkle dinnah fi a fly
galang dada
galang gwaan yaw sah
yu nevah ad noh life fi live
jus di wan life fi give
yu did yu time pan ert
yu nevah get yu jus dizert
galang goh smile inna di sun
galang goh satta inna di palace af peace
mi know yu coudn tek it dada
di anguish an di pain
di suffarin di prablems di strain
di strugglin in vain
fi mek two enz meet
soh dat dem pickney couda get
a likkle someting fi eat
fi put cloaz pan dem back
fi put shoes pan dem feet
wen a dallah cyaan buy
a likkle dinnah fi a fly
mi know yu try dada
yu fite a good fite
but di dice dem did loaded
an di card pack fix
yet still yu reach fifty-six
before yu lose yu leg wicket
‘a noh yu bawn grung here’
soh wi bury yu a Stranger’s Burying Groun
near to mhum an cousin Daris
nat far fram di quarry
doun a August Town
Linton Kwesi Johnson
Growing up in England away from my father from the age of 11 deepened my love for my father. I married and became a father aged 18 and therefore matured faster than normal - Linton