Djembe Drum
My rib-cage the hidestrings
taut about my hollow
shell, body singing
like a lute the drum-
beat vibrates my marrow, delves
deeper than nerves. The djembe
drum draws me
into its making dense heat Adwomakase
Kese, Ghana:
five tribesman cup fresh white
eggs in their gentle black hands,
pace solemnly under a short-boled
golden shower bush,
wide-spreading crown hung low
flourish of fragrant yellow,
past an african tulip tree, high
and blessed red with bloom,
to the massive
Tweneboa,
cedar scented,
divine.
Eggs ladled
from hands to tree with sacred words,
then with honed
axes, they fell
and hollow it
there
in the patient cassava field
and bear it home
in the blood-red glow
in the Ghanaian sunfall
to Kodwo's house in the mango grove
at the far edge of the village.
Tweneboa bakes basks seeps a year
of African sun, then Kodwo sculpts
it becomes waist-high wooden goblet,
gives it groove,
stretches an elephant ear
taut over the top. His hands tap awake
the tree
spirit with the power
of its new voice
voice that claims the bones
of my throat, hollows
my flesh fills me plays me
resonance body of breathing drum
– christina cook