It is another Big Landmark Day today. On 5 October 2009, I had the surgery which would confirm the diagnosis of breast cancer which makes it three years since my mastectomy, three years of extreme lopsidery and three years since Twang Arm came into my life.
There is no love lost between Twang Arm and myself and not an ounce of respect afforded in either direction. So I want to upstage Twang Arm in a mischievous kind of way today.
The idea came to me the other evening, when I was preparing to go to my writing group. We had set ourselves an assignment and (as too often happens) I was delving into my writing archive to find something to take along. So often as the day of the group approaches, either I am scrawling away at the eleventh hour trying to finish it, or conceding that I have not created anything fit enough to share and digging deep to find something from past writing. As I had been out of Yangon, in the capital the previous week and into the weekend I had had even less free time to write, and I resorted to the archive. I went back a number of years, to my time in Nepal when I found so much inspiration around me, observing little snippets of ordinary daily life, and sharing this. I was rapidly enveloped in nostalgia re-reading the writing and remembering those numerous moments. Very like our recent “celebrating the ordinary” challenge which Marie of Journeying Beyond Breast Cancer laid before us.
And I found this poem below, which I had written years ago and completely forgotten about. Memories flood back of the Kathmandu streets and the calls of what I termed the Twang Man” as monsoon retreats and the cooling temperatures of the approaching winter.
The man with the strange twanging instrument
Outside the bedroom window
along the busy path
of soft mud
swollen by endless weeks
of the season’s monsoon rain,
the morning traders pass
calling, singing, tempting
all to trade with them
Wheeling bikes
laden with fruit, vegetables, fish
to sell.
Bamboo mats, rice nanglos
small matted stools
for us to buy
empty rice sacks, bottles
to collect for a few rupees,
pressure cookers, gas stoves to mend.
A new noise
unfamiliar
competes with their calls
Twang! Twang! Twang!
Who is that man?
What does he carry
against his right shoulder?
A strange wooden object
with a music like string
which he plucks at
as he walks silently
along the lane
Twang! Twang! Twang!
Soon he is seated
in a neighbour’s yard
silently, patiently teasing
the wool filling of the winter quilts,
freeing them of their dampness
brought by the summer’s rains,
repairing them for the coming cold
readying them for their winter work
protecting young and old alike
from the penetrating night time chill.
As the rains slowly come to an end
the man who brings the twanging sound
visits so many streets, yards, homes
silently patiently
day by day
as the skies become clearer
and the cold creeps daily closer.
His work ensures that
each family will sleep
in the warmth and comfort
of the freshly repaired quilt.
In these short autumn weeks
shawls, woollen hats and socks
slowly appear on the city folk
as he readies them
for the night time cold.
In these short weeks
he must earn
enough to feed his family
for the coming months.
Outside the bedroom window
along the busy path
of dried, cold, dusty earth
cracked by daytime sun and night time chill
the morning traders pass
calling, singing, tempting
all to trade with them.
Less one familiar sound
Twang! Twang! Twang!
Coincidentally this is also Twang Man’s season in Nepal, and if I close my eyes and let my mind drift to the Kathmandu streets I can hear his call.
Very creative, Philippa. I like how you turn around that twang arm into something poetic and witty. That’s how the healing really takes place. xox
Thanks J :) I had completely forgotten that I had written this (it is amongst a lot of poetry I wrote in Nepal) around 2005 ad when I saw it the other day, it leapt out at me! So this actually predates Twang Arm by a few years! Contextualising it is incredibly healing indeed :) xoxox
Pretty cool poem – very descriptive.
Thank YOU Lois – your poetry is beautifully descriptive so I am highly chuffed :) “Chuffed” is a bit like gobsmacked, but with the idea of mega pleased thrown in :) Thanks, L xx xox
I presume your writing group loved this poem as much as I did!
Thank you so much :) Though I confess I ended up taking some other ones, which I will also share at some point.
Great poem! Thank you so much for sharing it.
Thanks B – I was happy to share something a little different, and I have a heap of random stuff like this from my years in Asia, especially the Nepal years which is where this one comes from.
Love this poem and its new title should definitely be “The Twang Man”. I often wonder at the immensity and pitch of the voices of the itinerant workers here who collect rubbish, recycle or sell water. The sound rises above the traffic, barking and twittering to the highest storeys of the blocks of flats.
Thank you.
Very nicely done! I like how you use the change in the ground to show the passing time – muddy to cold and hard. And I like how you neglected the twang arm in favour of the twang man. :) Well done, and very vivid poem, too.
Thank you so much C – this was one I had written ages ago in Kathmandu and missed the twang reference until the writing group prompt! :) Thank you :)