Text with glossary of 'May Queen' here:
https://lastbustovasco.blogspot.com/2008/05/may-queen.html
Published in Last Bus to Vasco: Poems from Goa (2006)
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Last night - or this morning to be precise - I did something different. I recorded my poem 'May Queen' (2004) on YouTube. This is a poem that has stayed with me ever since I wrote it. It is a signature poem of mine written in an Edenic world when both mum and dad were with us. Mum, in fact, passed on the same year. I was inspired to write it to commemorate the obvious, viz. the things that we do in May in Goa which make it so special for us.
At that time I was holding a job in Delhi and those brief forays into Goa - 'to see the rains' - were much longed for. It was the only time we were together as a family.
So when I read it, I do so with a conviction that sometimes surprises me. Enunciating every word as though my being resided in it, as though, through the poem it were possible to summon the past.
But the past is always with us, if we preserve it. Nature, the sea, the bread, all animate our lives in a medley stitched together by the beads of faith. It is possible to relive or recreate the poem by savouring the sounds in the poem, viz. waves 'crash' over the angry sea; the children 'shriek' with delight, and the koel 'cries' on the heels of rain.
'May Queen' is a very sensual poem, in that it appeals to all the senses. You can smell the mangoes of May; you can hear the sounds of May; you can taste the food of May; you can almost feel the spray of the sea on your face. And all this happens in Goa.
For dinner I had my first swig of the season of urrack - the local brew. Last year we were invited around this time for a family lunch to celebrate the feast of Milagres Church at Mapusa. We were treated to urrack from Canacona.
I felt there was so much we were missing this year in Goa, as the seasons skip by. The tiatrs, the customary weddings, the music shows on the beach, the travelling for the vacations . . .
As I wrapped up my recordings at 4.25 a.m. I felt I had crossed a new frontier. It was worth the fatigue and the exhaustion. Yes, this was an amateur recording, but I gave it my best. I recorded it at our home in Porvorim, Goa. I chose the sitting room and waited till all was quiet well past midnight. There were some jerks who strolled around at 2.30 a.m. but it was not for long.
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