trees shake maracas ~
a Taino rhythm to keep ~
rattle past’s recall ~
the new world vomited bile ~
poisoned, the old leaves fell dead
~
(note: Maracas originated with the Taino people, the Indigenous inhabitants of the Caribbean Islands and S. Florida. The coming of Columbus brought a time of disease, slavery and murder that left approximately 5 million humans dead, nearly exterminating the Taino. Indigenous people today face a continued battle in America to protect their treaty negotiated lands, waters and ancestral burial sites most recently from gas pipelines. An honest look at history is a starting point in healing old wounds and preventing new ones.)
#noACP
Words and Photography ©2017 Tanya Cliff ~ to contact me
Entry posted in tanka, poetry & noACP. Bookmark the permalink.
A good teaching within your poem today, Tanya. I appreciate the bit of history you provided on the original inhabitants of the land. All very good as usual! Our actions then and now can have some dire consequences…
Have a good one and “catch some rays” today!
🙂
Thank you so much, Steve! It is sunny here today. I’m going to write out on my deck this afternoon. Have a great day!😊
Sounds like great fun! Enjoy the rest of your day and evening, Tanya 🙂
I will! You do the same!😊
🙂
Reblogged this on The Militant Negro™.
Thank you, and enjoy the cocktail!
I concocted a mango martini a few years back, it’s soooooooo good.
I love mango! That sounds good.
It’s very good.
Good article. I never knew anything about the Taino people.
Thank you so much! I knew of them, but I recently learned that Columbus enslaved many of them to “mine gold”. The Taino were peace loving people. It’s a sad story. The history books fall horribly short.
Sad indeed.
Thank you, Steve. The history is dark, and I’m not even close to doing it justice in the space of a Tanka. Hopefully it provides food for thought.
Invitation is a good word for it. If even one person stops to think and respond differently to the needs of others, then it was worth the effort. I also think people become overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problems and forget that they can make a difference one life at a time. They have to care enough to try though.
I agree. I can’t solve the world’s problems, but there is a lot that I can do. I try to instill this in my children also. Help where you can. Maybe it is a local food pantry or money to a global disaster relief or visiting an elderly neighbor. My 90 year old grandmother still takes food to “shut-ins”, some of them 15 years younger than she is. I think that is part of what has kept her alive and happy for so long. We benefit when we help others…no matter how we do it.
I hope you do. That sounds like a sweet treat, Steve! Hypocrisy is common disease. Storytellers, musicians and artists have the opportunity to apply some honest balm, if we are brave enough to do it.
We become more brave, I think in the company of kindred spirits.
Iron sharpens iron…or in the case of our writing community, maybe it is graphite sharpens graphite (from those wooden pencils…)😊😉
Interesting and very different. The end is very sobering.
I got the idea for it listening to the old leaves rattle off the trees this spring. It is sobering and hard to understand. Thank you! Hope it warms up by you soon!
It’s warm indoors. Nunca llueve en los bares, as they say in Spain: it never rains in the bars.
Lol…That is one way to stay warm!
Powerful as always
Thank you, Manuel! Have a wonderful weekend!
You as well
This is incredible!
Thank you so much! I’m thrilled you thought so!