The Marathon Song

prelude

Drag the hard skinned drum

to the centre of the yard,

Carry a spare string for that isiriri, my friend

Bring out three-legged stools too

You mustn't break your back before I get back.

Beat it modestly, mind the hide,

It mustn't burst before the refrain-

Till the last dancer, the last stanza.

Bow the isiriri soft and slow-

This isn't a quick pluck-and-go

This is a telling of the falling feet

By the people of the lean legs

On the long winding road

Of legendary lungs

Enduring rhythm

unbroken spirit

This is it.

 

Beginnings

You better bet humble;

Or lose in a blind gamble.

So listen thee to the deep;

hearken now before you leap:

For the longest path lies quiet-

 but shakes your bones the hardest yet!

So the runner's best bet

 is to don a sentinel's mood,

Sniffing for peril in this night just begun;

is to put on a warrior's hood

To keep his scalp from the desert sun.

 

The opening cords crack like rain in March

Clapping the morning deaf.

In nervous jerk, the mob surges

Like a giant Marabou stock,

 in a panicky abandonment of perch.

Nostrils seeking the air,

sneakers lapping the earth

And elbows flapping in-between.

 but it is only the opening cords-

Quick and clipped

Then a tambourine's rattling shake

[Marathon… same stanza]

A hype and a clash…then

rumba,

Slower, comelier.

 

In the steadied tap of feet

In the mid-verse swing

Like spooked sparrows sway away

Together the strong and the near-lame,

So the crowd seeking dream and fame

Stumbles ahead into clarity-

 for each with his lot shall surely fall:

With the fools, the wind will fly into folly,

With the eager, their haste will come to waste.

But you, my friend, find my step - stay

Find your beat; don't just dance along,

The dance of distance is a long song.

 

With the first smile-

That punishing strike of a willful sun,

The unpracticed, un-tempered, unsure-

Those made of much else but steel

Are on the roadside dump with woe.

The testy hang-ons too must fail the ordeal.

 

But for those who'll toil

Nature finds a jolly spot in their minds.

Like a fine fuel injecting into an engine

comes the countryside free and wide

And all chambers are charmed with life!

Green on tree-tops and green in the undergrowth

The brown and gnarled, knotted and knobby

The ragged rock and the plowed plots

 the granite black and algae white

The red earth and the blue skies

All lost apart then found in your eyes;

Is a beautiful song to see.

 

And you're dancing, unmindful

 of distance lost behind you.

The quiet gathering of kilometers underfoot,

The silent surgery upon the original mob

Into a broken line on a narrow trail:

You see less and feel more:

[Marathon… same stanza]

The heart beats in solid throb

The first sweat falls onto the road.

We are on.

 

The middle

The sweat on my forehead in this heat,

The heat in my toes as I forge ahead,

The swing of my hands

The weight of wind on my chest

The swish of my shorts, the fall of feet

The gasp in my throat and the salt on my lips

The lock of my joints, the jerk in my hips,

The tension in my tendons,

And a stream of sweat down my spine,

a-step-at-a-time and I head along;

Am going fast and doing fine.

 

And I bow my head for Road, The Master

Who can slight your endless length?

Who but you tastes the salt of my labour?

In the sweat that you soak in?

Who knows my strain and gasp;

The urgency in my breath,

The weight in my stride,

The draw of my foot,

The drag on the climb;

Who?

 

I land with the heel, I spring with the toe

Heel and toe, I step and go,

I keep the beat with a swing of elbow-

I keep the time with sway of chin

Sowing drops of sweat by the roadside.

I write with my feet, a new song every season-

grating, crunching with rubber on sand

As I scale the rises, as I deep into streambeds

The crunch and grate are notes on a scale-

Quick quivers cracking beneath my feet

Where I sing them as I go

 as I sing on the sand as I scale this run.

 

Because push carts and posh cars

Can't be ruining my music today,

[Marathon… same stanza]

Because Smoky Babu (the bus) and boda boda

Shan't be chocking my breathing this day,

Because yet that old wagon won't stall Mid-road,

I shall have my music as I like it.

I shan't have to halt mid-line

I shan't have to slow down then speed up

Or run off then into this good road, this scale.

So, come ye all good players:

Come wind from the woods where this path winds,

Come wind and fife by my ears;

Come Chief de Croak where this scale dips by the muddy pond

Come Croak Prince- grate your throat, bless my stride;

Come monkey, break a twig let it fall, let it drum the earth,

Swing wide then leave your ghost swaying the boughs,

Then laugh!

 

That laugh is The half-point

A landmark in the wind

 

That awakes my mind.

My skin is shouting from every old blister-

Yet from here on I must sing faster.

Sweat is salting on my face, air's tagging  in my breast

But I must blaze through saline heat, and never rest.

There's a quarrel in my calves, shock in my waist-

But therein burns a fire- for the homestretch braced.

The toes swim in liquid heat, but they too must keep the beat.

And I must dance on.

 

The  road-side's endearingly great:

Patches grassy green hawk their comfort in your face

Dare you look too long and you'll break your pace;

Streams clean, welcomingly cool look up

Begging you to drop into a trot, to stoop and scoop;

And the canopied shades lined to shelter

Broken bodies from an incessant sun

Blazing on your back, licking you nape,

Straining your song, hoping you'd stop

At the stream, under the shade, or on the grass.

 

But you drone louder to drown

The noise in the mind, the voice in the wind,

The startled onlookers' eyes trying to be kind-

[Marathon… same stanza]

Those pitiful eyes that see and say sorry

That stare in uncomprehending worry,

The voices that murmur in wonderment why

A grown man leaves his beer to court muscle ache,

A woman shamelessly breaks into a sweat in public!

 

But onwards you trudge

And let none be your judge.

You swing your elbow and sway your booty,

You let the rhythm of these remain testimony

Of a will to live, of an ability to carry,

Of an intention to keep, to improve by use

A body born able, now chiseled and apt.

 

And  so in the strained stanzas of straddled time

In the quieter song and louder puff

When the going has gone on and gotten tough

In the last stretches of struggling rhyme-

The human spirit approaches the sublime:

Nerves converse with tendons

Dreams merge with the scenery

Fears fly into the dust forgotten

Courage speaks to the bones

Focus is reconstituted

Intentions revised

The spirit freed,

Flies!

 

Homestretch

Leashed to the neck, the isiriri screams

Restrained between thighs, the drum rumbles

The burst of will is a flex of the mind,

The back arches backwards

Knees rise to mark the beat

Toes curl and scoop

Palms open and slice the wind

The chin strikes up and out

Lips purse and hoard the last breath

sky bows and the earth cranes

They meet in a long kiss

In a dance

To the end-

To the drum

[Marathon… same stanza]

to the Isiriri

to the flesh

to the mind

To the end!

 

When they part and tag away

The twang of the final note hangs in the air

The echo of the last thunder rings everywhere.

The pant of a spent lung fades out, freely

Sweat will gather and roll, eyes

Will roam and record the moment

But the feeling is forever.

 

 

Award Ceremony

Every child her thrill.

And I will give my life

to come home holiday-happy

With sweat for a souvenir;

With a spirit reborn;

With a body lean and lithe;

With a brand new song mine own.