The Baye Fall

my father moved through dooms of love
by E. E. Cummings

my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height

this motionless forgetful where
turned at his glance to shining here;
that if(so timid air is firm)
under his eyes would stir and squirm

newly as from unburied which
floats the first who,his april touch
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots

and should some why completely weep
my father's fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry
for he could feel the mountains grow.

Lifting the valleys of the sea
my father moved through griefs of joy;
praising a forehead called the moon
singing desire into begin

joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
and pure so now and now so yes
the wrists of twilight would rejoice

keen as midsummer's keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly(over utmost him
so hugely) stood my father's dream

his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn't creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.

Scorning the Pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain

septembering arms of year extend
yes humbly wealth to foe and friend
than he to foolish and to wise
offered immeasurable is

proudly and(by octobering flame
beckoned)as earth will downward climb,
so naked for immortal work
his shoulders marched against the dark

his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head;
if every friend became his foe
he'd laugh and build a world with snow.

My father moved through theys of we,
singing each new leaf out of each tree
(and every child was sure that spring
danced when she heard my father sing)

then let men kill which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
scheming imagine,passion willed,
freedom a drug that's bought and sold

giving to steal and cruel kind,
a heart to fear,to doubt a mind,
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am

though dull were all we taste as bright,
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death
all we inherit,all bequeath

and nothing quite so least as truth
--i say though hate were why men breathe--
because my Father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all


My friend wrote about this next poem:
"i feel so un-believably pierced by this poem and all ways have and i think always will........ i am weeping right now and praising GOD."


Daddy
by Sylvia Plath


You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time--
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You--

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two--
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.
12 October 1962


BAYE FALL:
(Baye means father in the Wolof language. Fall is a last name.)

There once was a devout and pious Muslim man from Senegal
named Cheik Ibrahima Fall.
Cheik Ibrahima Fall was searching all over the land for his spiritual master.
He would encounter a holy man and sit at his feet and inquire in his heart, is this my master?
and the answer would come back no and still he searched both places high and low.
One day he saw a man named Cheik Amadou Bamba and knew that this man was the one he had been seeking...
So they sat and gazed into each other eyes, and Cheik Amadou Bamba knew that this was the man who had been seeking him, his one true disciple.
Cheik Amadou Bamba wore an all white robe with no pockets, sandals, and carried nothing but a tea pot and a prayer mat.
He never looked over his shoulder.
He preached non-violent opposition to the colonial rule of France in West Africa.
For this he was persecuted by the French.
They say he was thrown into a den of hungry lions who behaved as tame kittens in his presence.
He was exiled to Gabon for 7 years, 7 months, 7 days, 7 hours, 7 minutes and 7 seconds...when he returned he built the holy city of Touba in Senegal.
Cheik Amadou Bamba called himself "Hadim Rasul Allah"...:"Servant of the Prophet (Mohammed) of God..."
So Cheik Ibrahima Fall devoted his life to this man.
He began to work so hard his clothes fell apart.
Rather than spend money on new clothes he simply patched the holes with odd bits of fabric lying around.
He considered Cheik Amadou Bamba so holy that he cupped both his hands for his master to spit in, and rubbed the spit in his hair until his hair was knotted in locks...
And he worked. He worked ceaselessly for his master. He worked so hard and so long that he didn't have time to fulfill four of the five pillars of Islam.
He didn't have time to pray five times a day.
He didn't have time or money to tithe to the poor.
He didn't have time or energy to fast during ramadan.
He didn't have time to go to Mecca.
All he could do was work and chant over and over the opening line of the Quran (and the first pillar of Islam):
"There is no god but god, and Mohammed is the messenger of god..."
Cheik Amadou Bamba saw the work of his disciple and that it was good.
Cheik Amadou Bamba excused Chiek Ibra Fall from four of the five pillars and said his work was a substitute for his prayer, his financial sacrifice, his fasting and his holy journey...
Critics would ask Ibra Fall, why you dont pray like us? you should pray like us...
and he would answer
You pray five times a day, but what are you doing all the rest of the day?

The fame of Cheik Ibrahima Fall spread across the land, and how he served his master Cheik Amadou Bamba, the holiest man of Africa...
Cheik Amadou Bamba had many sons and grandsons who became marabouts (holy men) of Senegal to this day.
The last youngest son of Cheik Amadou Bamba is the holiest man in Senegal today...he lives in Touba...
Cheik Ibrahima Fall also had many sons and grandsons who became marabouts of Senegal.
Many men (and some women too) of Senegal hear the call of Cheik Ibrahima Fall and join the brother/sisterhood. For this they are excused from practicing four of the five pillars.
But all other muslims must still...
Hard work for their marabout and for the community, and chanting and singing the first pillar, is their religious practice.
They call themselves the BAYE FALL, the followers of FATHER FALL. Because he is like their guiding light, they call him Lamp Fall...he is the lamp of light to them...
They are free to drink alcohol, smoke tobacco and marijuana.
But they wont eat swine.
Touba is their Mecca.
The Baye Fall marabouts of today are considered holy and pure and to posess mystic powers.
Islam allows a man to have up to four wives. The Baye Fall marabout may have more...it is said that to father children he gives his wife a hand written note upon which is breathed a sacred breath and when the woman accepts this note she will become pregnant...
This and more i learned from my Baye Fall friends, some in California and some in Senegal...

Sometimes you will see the Baye Fall around town, wearing clothes they call N'jockahss, which means all thrown together like a patch work. Baye Fall revere N'jockahss, which is more a state of mind than a clothes style. It means someone who is humble enough to accept anything as it is. Poor clothes, poor food...almost a mentality of asceticism...like that of a mendicant. The Baye Fall will sometimes travel through the streets wearing long robes of patchwork fabric, dreadlocks streaming behind them, boots and a big leather belt, singing and chanting at the tops of their lungs, while carrying a large bowl in which they accept donations. When they see another Baye Fall they will greet each other exuberantly. They will shake hands and then bow down to bring the back of the other persons hand up to touch their forehead gently. They will do this back and forth quickly several times...all the while uttering a steady stream of greetings and salutations with smiles and happiness, like a long lost reunion.

"JAYE JEFF BAYE FALL! AKASA!
JAI JEFF OTAY KUBA!
BARKAY SERIGNE TOUBA...BARKAY CHEIK IBRA FALL...
LAMPA FALL...
YES I! GIVE THANX AND PRAISE TO THE MOST HIGH...
JAI JEFF WHY!"