cyberdivadotorg

It is not the photograph
That is
Evidence

It is my memory of his memory that
I pass on to you
That is evidence

It is not the picture that tells the truth
It is your memory of my memory of his memory
That is the truth

Whether He remembers telling me
Or
Not

Whether you heard me tell it or not

I remember

It is so .

yup yup yup

I think about my frantic phone call home

realizing I had lost his horoscope

for getting
from the knowledge producer I knew
the one who had told me about the stars, the moon and my future…

being told my uncle was forgetting

I remember the panic when asked for his time of birth

( his, my son)

scrambled to the basement digging through diaries

for getting

his time of birth

but that was a time I was not recording

details

though the vision and feeling replayed

I dug further into the boxes he had packed and mailed to me more than 15 years ago

( he, my father)

knowing better than I did then that these books contained
knowledge

for I was to be the bard for his family

( his, my father)

he never told me that – but he knew and I knew

but
I forget
I forget

The baby book, the pediatrician’s handwriting, the size of his small head

all recorded

the time of birth

for getting
the horoscope work outsourced
by email
in languages I needed
my uncle to translate

the one who had forgotten where the papers were

a whisper haunted spoke
flashing a landscape from marine drive on a TV screen
as we watched the movie on netflix

my pre-memory flashed

you are the bard – the knowledge producer for the family

you must
re-
member….

whether you know it or not
whether you remember it or not
whether they hear you or not

you must
re-
member

The bards they went from place to place
learning
Other
people’s stories
telling them to other people
in rhythms and tones,
tunes and pitches

that the rulers did not always comprehend

the bard had learned from all the
Others

s/he travelled far and wide
forgot
where s/he be-longed
no longer longing for any one
place

the bard did not recognize the emperor’s call
for the emperor had not called out in
hir
direction before
ever

not until the emperor heard that the bard was
singing
in too many tones and pitches and harmonies and dis-harmonies

once the emperor started to hear this
multiplicity
he sought to contain.

he proceeded to train bard-like people
in particular forms

told them not to sing many tones and pitches but to teach
all those Others
how to contain
in these particular forms

then he told them to empower them to
write

so no bard could sing with them ever again
because then they would be empowered individuals
writing
in these particular forms…

and the emperor would understand them all…

the conjugations…

they shifted in the telling

because no one remembered or felt compelled that the narrator’s body

had at one time given birth

since that was not significant

the conjugations in language shifted based on whether or not that was

to be signified…

so chitragupta picked up a quill

and started to write