{"id":8159,"date":"2020-04-22T11:26:04","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T10:26:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/?p=8159"},"modified":"2020-04-22T11:26:04","modified_gmt":"2020-04-22T10:26:04","slug":"iguatu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/2020\/04\/22\/iguatu\/","title":{"rendered":"Iguatu"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note<\/strong>: To mark Earth Day 2020 we bring you a new song by Bartholomew Ryan of the Loafing Heroes<\/a><\/span> with a new recording at the end. <\/em><\/p>\n

IGUATU<\/p>\n

I read a line from a Mineiro poet who wrote:
\nA aus\u00eancia \u00e9 um estar em mim<\/em>.
\nReading a poem is a slow act of contemplation
\nin a moment of the day that the devil cannot find.<\/p>\n

I was born when the Sun and Pluto
\nfought for my location
\nthe burning, brightest, boiling giver of life,
\nand the coldest, darkest, remote star deep inside the soul.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m caught between
\nabsolute defeat and absolute desire
\nunder the canopy of stars
\nwe are wanderers.<\/p>\n

ah Iguatu<\/p>\n

We have been a civilisation of sky worshippers
\nchildren of a celestial father
\nthe forests were monstrous
\nbut they have always been divine,
\nin the shadow, they have always been my home.
\nIt is time, with the animals, the plants, the stones and the streams,
\nto return again and stay loyal to the earth.<\/p>\n

ah Iguatu<\/p>\n

When I opened my eyes
\nit brought me back to when my brother died
\ntwenty years ago today
\nhis spirit still crackles in my mind\u2019s eye
\nhis charming sneer wakes me up to vitality again.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m travelling now through
\nthe luminous green continent of Brazil
\nfull of magic, full of pain,
\nfull of sun, full of rain,
\nto find another one of my kin.<\/p>\n

On my way
\nI saw thousands of Sub-Saharan Africans in chains
\nforced over in slave ships
\nTupi and Guarani driven from the coast
\nand desperate folk from Ireland
\nin coffin ships arriving dead or sickly on the shore.<\/p>\n

This is tropical truth
\nThis is celtic truth
\nThis is Hy Brasil
\nIn the Kerribrasilian sea<\/em><\/p>\n

ah Iguatu<\/p>\n

I sauntered up to the sert\u00e3o
\n<\/em>in the northeast to a town called Iguatu
\nto find the river
\nwhere my cousin drowned in 1973
\nthe name of the river was the Jaguaribe
\nthey called it the dry river
\nbut as his sister Joan said \u2013
\n\u2018there was nothing dry about it that day.\u2019<\/p>\n

Patrick was born in Castlecove Kerry
\nhe just had that glow
\nhe became a Redemptorist priest
\nand headed off to Pindorama
\n<\/em>he learnt the languages, he played the tunes
\nhe rallied the kids, he said his prayers
\nhe laughed everywhere he went.<\/p>\n

He sang a song about the devil
\nwho supposedly was buried down in Killarney
\nand then rose again and joined the British army
\nhe used to make up the verses here and there,
\nand the displaced locals shone with him.<\/p>\n

ah Iguatu<\/p>\n

We are the only creatures
\nthat are allowed to feel that we don\u2019t belong here
\nwhile we seem to be there
\nour identity and presence can be absent entirely.<\/p>\n

Tupi, Guarani, Irish and African
\nthe love songs are sad
\nthe war songs are happy
\nwe sing when we are grieving
\nlonging is the loss of life
\nand loss is the life of longing.<\/p>\n

This is tropical truth
\nThis is celtic truth
\nThis is Hy Brasil
\nIn the Kerribrasilian sea<\/em><\/p>\n

This is Real Absence
\na presence I carry in me
\nsing for the ancestor
\nsmile with the stranger
\nwandering like the orphan
\nmy mother, your father
\nmy sisters, your brothers
\nthe rivers, my lovers
\nthe mountains, the trees
\nthe leaves, the seas
\nthese dark geographies
\noh tears of drowned liberation
\noh heretic-holy laughter<\/p>\n

ah Iguatu<\/p>\n

The Loafing Heroes<\/strong>: https:\/\/theloafingheroes.bandcamp.com\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: To mark Earth Day 2020 we bring you a new song by Bartholomew Ryan of the Loafing Heroes with a new recording at the end. IGUATU I read a line from a Mineiro poet who wrote: A aus\u00eancia \u00e9 um estar em mim. Reading a poem is a slow act of contemplation in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":8176,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[824,4309,6310,9157],"class_list":["post-8159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-bartholomew-ryan","tag-iguatu","tag-music","tag-the-loafing-heroes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}