Sound—
the gentle hum of traffic
and my old fridge thrumming
with its own chords.
Soothing and compelling me
to abandon duty for turtle
doodles that litter my table.
Hearing expands to receive
messages from my ancestors
several generations back,
and new locomotives all the way
from the future—rumbling
steel with eyes of the tiger
glowing with perception.
I taste the purity of air
coming in from the mouths
of seals and salmons before
plastics entered the ocean.
All at once, I am a child
on the shore. I am the child
tending calves in the green
fields of my country, strong
winds rousing the trees
and the waves, attending
to me like an urgent lover—
Whoosh! Whoosh. Whoosh.
In these moments stretching
into infinity, I am an infant
yet full of years. Shedding hair,
teeth, and knowing full well
that when my time arrives,
I’ll take nothing. At cremation,
the body splinters into sparkling
fragments carried skywards,
iterative cells knowing which
way to go home—to a multitude.
*
Sanctum
Three male turkeys
have claimed
our holy space
in the woods—
the drum circle.
I approach cautiously,
each inhale purified
by the scent of pines
and fragrant blossoms
of black locust,
with a hint of honey
on the nose.
The first time
I came here,
I sat on the big,
rugged rock.
At call and response,
tired hands and feet
felt the surge
and began
stomping until
the heart could
not separate
from the drumbeats.
At solstice, we speak
no other language
all night long.
Isn’t it possible
that we’ve found
at last what the sages
meant when they said
we shall transcend
in the communion
of our souls—
as we linger
in unison?
*
Old Bartimaeus, I Feel You
In my version, when his
eyes opened and he saw
for the first time the hands
that had guided his movements,
he cried in astonishment,
I see! Dear Lord, I see!
Like me not knowing
who I was until the day
I touched myself
in the family photograph,
and screamed with the joy
of recognition all over my face.
The spark of vision
too marvelous, belief
comingling with disbelief
like a pupa finding light,
discarding its filmy
coat for the first time.
Mildred Kiconco Barya is a North Carolina-based writer and poet of East African descent. She teaches and lectures globally, and is the author of four full-length poetry collections, most recently The Animals of My Earth School (Terrapin Books, 2023). Her prose, hybrids, and poems have appeared in New England Review, Shenandoah, Joyland, The Cincinnati Review, Tin House, Forge, and elsewhere. She’s now working on a collection of creative nonfiction, and her essay “Being Here in This Body” won the 2020 Linda Flowers Literary Award and was published in the North Carolina Literary Review. She serves on the boards of African Writers Trust and Story Parlor and coordinates the Poetrio Reading events at Malaprop’s Independent Bookstore/Café.