Putumayo helps to make soup

Gina Mercer

My post-colonial theorist friends may sneer, but
as I make soup and play your Festa Brasil

supple hands of sound
reach out
to heft the shards
of glacier grief
out of the way –

grim and historical begins
to shift
            to lift.

Thank you, Putumayo,
for bringing these revolutionising
        rhythms and riff
into my darkened kitchen
breaking through the bleak rubble –

propelling me away
from cramped and limping
toward
        the possibility of
the ecstasy of
                bright-limbs dancing.



Note: Putumayo is a record company which specialises in World Music

Gina Mercer revels in being a writer, teacher, and editor. In Spring 2021 she will enjoy an artist’s residency on King Island, Bass Strait. She was Editor of Island Magazine from 2006-2010. She‘s taught creative writing in universities and communities for over 30 years. She’s published eleven books. Her three latest are: The Sky Falls Down: An Anthology of Loss (co-edited with Terry Whitebeach, Ginninderra Press, 2019); The Dictionary of Water (Wild Element Press, 2019, wild.element@iinet.net.au); and Watermarks (Ginninderra Press, in press, 2021).