Open Mic, Open Mind!

Earlier in the week I performed at an open Mic poetry event at Duffy's Irish Bar in Leicester. It was very stimulating to meet such open minded people with a wealth of talent. I also pushed myself to a different level with the type of poems I chose to perform. They both not only had themes from my motherland, Assam, in the North East of India. I also recited a couple of stanza's of my second poem in my mother tongue Assamese. This is the first time I have written a poem in another language and it has inspired me to write more.

Both poems will be posted on my blog, the following is the first one I performed. It looks at the theme of how the Assamese mark pretty much every occasion in life with a different type of song. These songs can be lullabies, for medicinal purposes, rituals etc.  The rituals performed during a woman's pregnancy and even when a child has smallpox, some type of song is sung.

A Life in Song. 

From the cradle to the grave,
in sadness and joy.
Darkness and light,
a song to sing.

After conception,
the warmth of a mothers womb,
nourished with a song.
Blessed before entering the world.

A grand entrance,
greeted with a song.
Rocked in a cradle,
no longer a restless child.

Laying close to a mothers heart,
soothed by her milk.
And sweet voice,
drifting into the night.

Pains and perils of smallpox.
A mothers heartbreak,
a suffering child.
A medicinal song.

Passed from mother to child,
flowing within the blood,
embedded in the veins.
ingrained for life.