Elisha Christensen

Tears from the Lion Mountains: Droplets from the Mother onto the Child

These series of poems has to deal with a very touchy part of my life.

Unfortunately, my connection with my biological mother, Rugiatu Kabia, was cut short after I was born. A lot of my poetry fleshes out my angst and frustration with my lack of a biological mother while incorporating motifs of dreaming, the ancestors, bees, and love.

I believe my most beautiful poems are about love; it is a type of love between a mother and a daughter, stranger to another stranger, and in awe of the earth that shows up into my poems. In the absence of a strong, confident cultural identity, I move towards what I want the most and what I can give.

Cultural Loneliness does not always have to be about sadness and despair, it can include the unconditional side of culture, the love for others and oneself.

Enjoy!

Bland ones

A boat, a boarding school, a babe?

Should I kick the bucket or the ball?

Sand

That’s where my knowledge has huddled

Sand tonnes

Blowing ceaselessly, dauntingly, mockingly at my fate?

Should the bee come, he seems to know all?

What am I?

I was the girl who laughed in her sleep,

But I am seldom in my dream world

I was the one who forgot how to breathe

But my groom rejected me

Neverland missed my letter

The sunset is never orange; all it is is a bleak gray

The Sicilian Lemon has never been tasted

Neither has love.

Ipanema has failed me

I am a failure. 

Beestings are reserved for the failures,

The commoners, the ordinary

But I’m something else; I’m nothing.

Will always be and was

Sand is nothing.

Something cool might come from it facing adversity,

But it is bland.

Bland is something, at least.

Maybe I am something… 

Just Bland.

A Dreamer


Every now or then

She’d wait ‘til ten

To go memory gazing

To set her fears blazing

Her brother said she’s always far away

Her mother noted she’s a keeper

 But her grandpa says it’s hard for a dreamer

 to be alive today

You Are Beautiful 


She sees herself as ugly

As some mistakes, nobody’ll choose

Her momma cries

At her side

And whispers…

“Aren’t I you and you me?

Why do you call yourself ugly?

Are you calling me ugly too?

I cried when I left you

I died for you

We are equals 

Mother and Daughter

There is no wall

Blocking my whisper

To tell you…

You are beautiful!”

Rigor Samsa

Today I mourn my friend Rigor Samsa

I mourn the end of our bonanza

He killed my fears, barred me from my demons

And tears, and with time they took his meaning

Yet he  grew back every evening

And told me, “my home needs weeding.”

Soon a fortress was grown

From a cluster of unknown feeling.

Now, I’ve grown up with the season

And my spine does no bleeding

And I won’t be seeing him anymore

Myself needs no more feeding

I won’t be needing

Rigor Samsa anymore. 

The Girl Who Laughed In Her Sleep


The girl who laughed in her sleep

Cried when the morning came

At night her dreams carried her deep

And let her touch some fame

As she tossed she collected memories 

And turned she resented fears 

Those always made her laugh so faintly

Even though she wound up in tears

‘Cause reality couldn’t fill her hungry soul

She longed to lay her eyes at rest

The world had no life to make her whole (she thought)

But at night she came alive and danced with her best

Situations played in front of her, like a movie screening

She played many characters, her dreams were pleasing 

Yet some part of her was dying


With every role, she painted another mask, from boiling oil

That she used to make this new identity 

Every night her tree, roots, soil, her ancestors become boiled

They scream “why would you cover me.”

“Are my leaves dead, and my bark cut?” Her Tree sighs

“Are my shoots short and don’t get water?” Her Roots cry

“Is my dirt unhealthy, what’s the fuss?” Her Soil says bitterly

“Are we not you and you us?” Her Ancestors whisper 

In each dream, she tried to explain herself

But she always fails to do so

Can’t they see, she thinks, I’d rather be by myself

In my mind with all this gold, with no thoughts of the other living


The girl who laughed in her sleep

Was seldom there in the morning

Her mind was some imaginative heap

Faraway from the world she was born in

Piano

There sat a piano, playing deep chords by a violin screeching the highest notes. Yet, despite the contrast, they made me homely on a cold winter night. I cried because the piano brought the deepest lows out of me, and the violin kept me looking at life with a high note. But, like the banjo, I feel utterly unused.

I Adore You

Come it’s your bedtime

You’ve played the day away

And soon it’ll be nighttime

Only to your dismay

Don’t let the bed bugs bite


The evening star’s appearing

Don’t you see it nearing

Come rest your head on my shoulder

This moment come let’s 

Cherish it forever


There’s a darkness

That comes without a warning


But I will sing you lullabies

And wake you in the morning

Don’t worry dear, I’ll hold you tight

I’m only still learning

How fast the minutes fly away

And every minute colder

Nothing in the world can stop me from adoring

You 


Lullabies

Morning 

Learning

Tight

Colder

Adore

I

Adore you

Adore you

You

My umbilical cord was my tether, my connection. With the death of its host and the experienced knife, I was cut off from that world.

I am

I am truly a Black-American, for my home is across the treacherous water. Although my ancestors have not traveled that sea, it is I and the other Black folks who must cross it to feel some form of connection. One could say I had an upper hand, a direct route, but that was so long ago that the way has been forgotten. So here I stand, one of millions, disconnected from the very roots that fuel the melanin in our skin, waiting for the ship to come back for us, to take us across the African Styx.

For a love of a mother

Goes without saying

We will meet one day soon

Somewhere above the moon

We will reach our hands out

And look towards the sky

But our feet will stay still

Competing against our will

For hopes’ like the morning

Bright in their novelty

But sometimes the shadows

Dims the light with woes

When that day comes closer

Look up to the sky

You will see me smiling

As I sing

When the day comes nearer

When we meet again

Close your eyes, be near me

Bask within the lovely

For the love of your mother

(Your mother)

Sustains forevermore

(Forevermore)

Cradles my sweet daughter

(My sweet daughter)

Amongst the pain and slaughter

For the love of a mother

Goes without saying

We will meet in the daybreak 

We will meet once you wake

There is no flash of light beckoning my soul above the stars, only a feeling of something draining, something leaking out and in its wake a sudden stillness that may never be interrupted.

Once Again

I walk aimlessly, beating on restlessly in the bush.

The forest has not revealed its paths and may never. 

So, walk must I forever on a road leading to empty space. 

Antioch is not mine to claim.

Salvation is not mine to have.

Makeni is not mine to name. 

I have nowhere to be or to come from. 

I have no place to lay down these bones.

I have nowhere to dig deep for the roots. 

Walk must I

Fall must I

Die must I 

On a road in between. 

Waiting for that knock. 

Waiting for that crack. 

Waiting in futile hope that my tethered tail is not fully unconnected. 

Until then, I follow the stream of the universe, hoping for a chance for some rest 

that mine will never be.

eighteen years ago

A woman in

An unmarked grave

Lies below us

Asleep to all 

Awaken by none

This woman dreams

And visions of

A different place.

eighteen years ago today

she left the living 

World full of others

To a land full

Of silence and dirt

Where she carries on

With her earthly duties

Giving and giving and

Giving and giving and

eighteen years ago 

This woman gave 

her final gift

One that shines

All around for

Others to see

Eighteen years today

This young woman 

Gave me life.

Like Mother Like Daughter

isn’t it just beautiful

The 

repetition beats on like a band of

Drums

steadying the pace through life

I can imagine my pain this night, so similar to hers, but a little less

The blood is like her blood, gushing down our legs as we panic and look nearby for help

The cramps, much like the Dilates, grow and expand as if my body wants to keep

Giving and giving

How ironic

of

The world

to

Give us similar struggles

as if

My burden is one of a life to be brought

into

The world

and not

The

end of that possibility 

As of now,

21 years ago,

She is dead and I,

i

keep on breathing and living and surviving

and giving.

Untitled 

Loneliness cannot be quantified. Loneliness, here, cannot truly be loneliness. Yes, we are trapped; the mountains of the North prevent easy travels to the lands of our ancestors, and to the West, there is a grand river, gushing with vitality and danger, and yet to the south we experience dense forestry, full of spirits and monsters, and finally to the east, there is nothing, wasteland upon wastelands. One would truly be lonely there, but even with our surroundings corralling us, we do not feel lonely. There is a sweet peace when one looks ahead and sees the towering mountains, thundering with old gods and old bones. We feel no loneliness when a stray spirit comes into our village, wreaking havoc upon the many fervent souls. And no, we feel no loneliness whether we look upon the dry or wet parts of our Land for we are nourished. We are loved and comforted and surrounded by our understanding of the natural order. The Selestials, keep us warm that way we shall never be lonely. It is our faith in them and our stories woven and unwoven that allow us to feel connectedness in this isolated terrain. It is them who we must place our faith in, whom we must strive for, endlessly and forever until the darkness comes and devours us. She is quite far, the darkness, she will not come soon. She sleeps beyond the stars and the planets and the constellations; she rests even past the celestial beings we allow to bend our life stories, she resides in a light devoid of all, light and darkness, she is the one who we only distantly fear. She may come or may never come. We do not know; that is only in the souls of the Selestials. Only so deep in their being that it would take great tragedy to find the answer. We do not seek that answer. We do not think of that answer. We do not question that answer. We, the Nduni, and all who came before us on this Land and others must only care for ourselves and place trust in the cyclical windstorms. Storms who carry those away and bring us others, these are the simple ways we abide by. The simplicity of not loneliness, that keeps our hearths warm and our souls fed. For with her, Darkness, would we truly feel alone… alone in darkness.