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D  R  U  I  S      B  E A  S  L  E  Y                          from H i G H   W A T E R M A R K   S A L O [O] N  volume 1 number 2

Oriki Oshun

We are women of the calabash.   Gourd hanging, bead shaking, rattling hipped women, who make war by coming to play.   Not even the gods could defeat us.   Only she, who carried the calabash, sang sweet luscious melodic tunes that cradled our anger, and acknowledged our strength, could tell us it was enough.   Enough she said.  

Come with me to the creek river stream and cool your selves.   Sip slowly my waters and be regenerated recalibrated invigorated elevated and renewed. Come to me when life gets tight like a leather color around your neck keeping you from taking in air freely forcing you to gasp and grasp at your throat and beat your chest like an asthmatic choking on her way to death.  

Come and see me and sip slowly my sweet waters.   Become intoxicated by the sticky juicy orange honey syrup that cascades down your throat, soothing your starving heart, reviving the love and possibility that had shrunken to a hard crusted nut the meat inside withered and dry.

We are women of the calabash grown from gourd vines green and dried in the sun.   Some of us are shaped like spoons with long curving necks and small bowls for dipping and scooping.   Some of us have wide mouths with short necks and round bowls with just enough

flatness on the bottom for the palm of a player to spring the tone from within.   As the palm and hardened flesh rock in a rhythmic patter the listener and player are careened into an ecstatic trance that encompasses the pain and sorrow of joylessness into orange honey bliss.

A calabash of women.   Praises to the owner of the gourd that comes to play. Owner of laughter and brass.   Sweetness like no other.   Praises to the mother for whom we are all daughters. We will shake and shimmy our way through difficulties.   We will giggle and glisten in the face of adversity.   We will sip slowly the sweet waters massaging love back into our hearts, filling our lungs with the scent of willow and the fragrance of yellow roses after a spring rain.   Sipping slowly the refreshing sweet waters that will fill our lives with the feel of our shapely calabash gourd selves. 

 

 

 
BEASLEY'S BIO

 

Druis Ann Iya Oshun Koya Beasley, is an poet, artist/educator, musician, and storyteller, who has lived and worked in the Capital District for over twenty-five years.   She is a founding member of the Sisters of Color Writing Collective, and the New African Music Collective.   As an initiate in a number of African mystery systems, Druis uses mythology and praise poetry as a working metaphor for today's world.   Her relationship with nature informs her ceremonial, performance and literary work, as well as her spiritual counseling.   Druis works with the City School District of Albany, and is a Woodhull Fellow with the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership. Her publications include: "there are womyn who lost their manes" and "The Same Way" in   SEEDS, SOC Literary Journal , Vol. 6, 2000; "Mud Womyn," "The Main," "Put Your Hands In It" and "Pure Joy" in   SEEDS, SOC   Literary Journal , Vol. 2, 1992; "Uncovry," "Emily & Me," The Little Magazine.   Vol. 18, 1992; "i clen/d dust," SEEDS, SOC Literary Journal , Vol. 1, 1991.