Poem
Malika Booker
Faith
Faith
Faith
The museum is an empty house, a dead lifestyle.In the living room, pictures of Jesus forlorn,
an old rosary hanging over the bed.
This how we lived in old days, they tell me.
I understand old ones die, like you did, Aunty,
the way your soul left your body, blank
on bleached sheets, the way these people
left their home. I look at this old bed now;
did a mother die here, choking on her spit too?
Is this her rosary? Did she lose it all?
I visited the hospital a month before you die,
your left big toe is a blackening cherry.
Cut it, we beg, but our pleas are moot;
you are Taurus. Stoic. Resolute.
That day you lost your rosary for two days;
we searched under beds and in fruit bowls.
You cried nonstop all night. Nurses sifted mountains
of soiled sheets until the rosary is found nestled
in your dirty pillow case. When they gave it to you,
your fingers continued rolling as if it had not strayed.
Then you, who clutched your faith like a second skin,
whispered to me, I have lost faith in my Lord.
2.
I want to write a hymn for you
where voices lift and southern Black choirs rock.
I want to write a hymn for you
where the sinners writhe, weeping bitter tears.
I want to write a hymn for you
where Baptist priests fling words at the congregation like fire
and Catholic priests throw holy water into the sky.
I want to write a classic hymn all harp and harmonica,
a hymn where our slave grandmas lift up their long frocks
and trample the earth to sounds of tambourines.
I want to write calypso hymns, folk hymns,
reggae hymns, joyous hymns.
I want to write sweet hymns for you.
© 2013, Malika Booker
From: Pepper Seed
Publisher: Peepal Tree Press, Leeds
From: Pepper Seed
Publisher: Peepal Tree Press, Leeds
![Malika Booker](/media/3/_resized/malikajpg_w336.jpg)
Malika Booker
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1970)
Malika Booker is a British poet, performer and playwright of Grenadian and Guyanese heritage. Although Booker was born in the UK, she spent eleven years of her childhood living with her mother, father and two brothers in Guyana. This time ignited her love of storytelling and the complex, deeply conflicted relationship she shared with her grandmother has really informed her written work. Her po...
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Poems of Malika Booker
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Faith
The museum is an empty house, a dead lifestyle.In the living room, pictures of Jesus forlorn,
an old rosary hanging over the bed.
This how we lived in old days, they tell me.
I understand old ones die, like you did, Aunty,
the way your soul left your body, blank
on bleached sheets, the way these people
left their home. I look at this old bed now;
did a mother die here, choking on her spit too?
Is this her rosary? Did she lose it all?
I visited the hospital a month before you die,
your left big toe is a blackening cherry.
Cut it, we beg, but our pleas are moot;
you are Taurus. Stoic. Resolute.
That day you lost your rosary for two days;
we searched under beds and in fruit bowls.
You cried nonstop all night. Nurses sifted mountains
of soiled sheets until the rosary is found nestled
in your dirty pillow case. When they gave it to you,
your fingers continued rolling as if it had not strayed.
Then you, who clutched your faith like a second skin,
whispered to me, I have lost faith in my Lord.
2.
I want to write a hymn for you
where voices lift and southern Black choirs rock.
I want to write a hymn for you
where the sinners writhe, weeping bitter tears.
I want to write a hymn for you
where Baptist priests fling words at the congregation like fire
and Catholic priests throw holy water into the sky.
I want to write a classic hymn all harp and harmonica,
a hymn where our slave grandmas lift up their long frocks
and trample the earth to sounds of tambourines.
I want to write calypso hymns, folk hymns,
reggae hymns, joyous hymns.
I want to write sweet hymns for you.
From: Pepper Seed
Faith
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