After the Carnaval in Trinidad— Tabanka
I
T o feel longing for what is no longer: In Trinidad they say tabanka:
A yearning to be a wound’s nectar, but there's no flower. Ask
B eauty to wind its silk, how it wants to be. What is known
A s quality ? Watch how spirit dances, performs its aria.
N ourishing music that soothes. What kind of dancing limb,
K arma, carried by wind, crafted by breath? Pause in its comma,
A s this ache rises, like geese in winter, gone at sunset.
II
Some say longing can only fill with more
of itself—a yearning to be a wound’s nectar,
a sweet healing offered to bees so they may store
honey on the hive’s shelf. We watch their
dance reeling, does it reveal some purpose,
like our desire—our soul’s unfolding—
this spirit dance we craft with wind, fire
of our breath? It is winter, the ache in us
rising to join again a world, leave the frozen
edges like the geese rising from the break
in the ice to fly to warmer climes. Those chosen
make so smooth a splice indeed, you cannot
see the join. Nothing needed to get, what’s got:
but love of life, in self and others like hand in glove.
Note: “Tabanka” is particular to the culture of Carnival in Trinidad, and the feeling when it is over.
Thus the acrostic in capital letters of Part 1.
- © Kitty Jospé 2021
Kitty Jospé loves the possibilities of language! After living and working in Europe, she delighted in teaching French (MA, NYU 1984). Since 2008, midway in completing an MFA at Pacific University, OR, she delights in moderating poetry appreciation discussions at two of the Rochester, NY Libraries. Popular reader and speaker, she also has 6 books and appears in many anthologies and reviews such as The Ekphrastic Review, Atlanta Review, The Orchard Journal.
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