Poems of the Day "Family Reunion & Fyah Fyah"
Family Reunion
By Maxine Kumin
The week in August you come home,
adult, professional, aloof,
we roast and carve the fatted calf
—in our case home-grown pig, the chine
garlicked and crisped, the applesauce
hand-pressed. Hand-pressed the greengage wine.
Nothing is cost-effective here.
The peas, the beets, the lettuces
hand sown, are raised to stand apart.
The electric fence ticks like the slow heart
of something we fed and bedded for a year,
then killed with kindness’s one bullet
and paid Jake Mott to do the butchering.
In winter we lure the birds with suet,
thaw lungs and kidneys for the cat.
Darlings, it’s all a circle from the ring
of wire that keeps the raccoons from the corn
to the gouged pine table that we lounge around,
distressed before any of you was born.
Benign and dozy from our gluttonies,
the candles down to stubs, defenses down,
love leaking out unguarded the way
juice dribbles from the fence when grounded
by grass stalks or a forgotten hoe,
how eloquent, how beautiful you seem!
Wearing our gestures, how wise you grow,
ballooning to overfill our space,
the almost-parents of your parents now.
So briefly having you back to measure us
is harder than having let you go.
Maxine Kumin, “Family Reunion” from Our Ground Time Here Will Be Brief (New York: Viking Press, 1982). Copyright © 1982 by Maxine Kumin.
Fyah Fyah
Sometimes
It is not that easy
To understand
Oh yeah I know
See I
I just have those moments
When the darkness inside
Takes over control
And then I'm chained and locked inside my head yeah
But it won't ever be the same again
After I'll say fyah fyah
But it's I
I'll just to have face it
And this is who I am
And nothing more
So now
Stop whining Selah
And just get yourself together
And sing the fucking song
I'll just have to face the dark inside my head
Cause there is nothing else to do, yeah
But it won't ever be the same again
After I'll say fyah fyah
Fyah fyah what shall I do mighty dread
It's the killer of my mental state, yeah
Be strong, no I will not go on
Let it get me, no way man, I just can't do that
Cause I'm a fighter, I'm not a big cryah
So big it up everyone trying to face their mess
Yes, big it up everyone trying to face their mess
Give me fyah fyah what shall I do mighty dread
It's the killer of my mental state, yeah
Be strong, no I will not go on
Let it get me, no way man, I just can't do that
Cause I'm a fighter, I'm not a big cryah
So big it up everyone trying to face their mess
Yeah, big it up everyone trying to face their mess
