Asavari

First published in Open Road Review

The sooty morning rankles
with smoke and fear
from last night’s gunfire.
On some streets, the
blood is yet to clot.

An old man sings
Asavari on the radio. His
voice quivers
through the unsteady
channel. Asavari, with more
flat notes than full.

On another morning,
A funnel had sucked
the sky black. With
smoke billowing from
bodies of turbaned men
set alight inside cars.

I did not know Asavari then
but did, the notation of
wailing. Full-throated
groaning set against
the flat notes of mourning.

On the poet’s birthday,
we sang his composition in
Asavari. “I cherish the slumber
that you break with your song.”
One marvelled at the poet’s ingenuity
to make flat notes vibrate
in awakened celebration.

Asavari plays on
the radio. The singer’s aging
voice jars with the
newscaster’s breaking-news.
A man is dragged and
lynched for what they
decide he ate. Flat notes
flounder to rise above full ones.