Take Me Along
(A Photo Essay by
Radhika Chalasani - SIPA)
July 1998
Caroline Nantamu sits outside
her one-room home in Kampala, Uganda with her three-year-old son Joseph.
Caroline tested positive for HIV when she was pregnant with him infected by her husband, who died
of AIDS-related illness a few years earlier, Caroline found out she was
HIV positive when she was pregnant with her youngest child.
Hark O
Death! The voyage that started without I
My Self
asleep whilst the caravan left at early dawn
A birth:
Upon Your face my eyes opened already in love
A face:
The beginning & the end, the nonbeing & all
December 1998
Patrick, 12, rests his head on
his mother's bed at Nsambya Hospital, where Caroline is being tested
for tuberculosis, a common AIDS-related illness in developing countries
Know not
where You hath came from
Bear not
squinting at You left so far
You:
The dove of hope blooming upon the branches of despair
I: The
sable-hawk of misery hunting that lucent harbinger-bird
You: The
hope bedewing every forsaken blossoming moment
I: The
shifting dunes enslaved to the despair’s sandy storm
December 1999
Caroline Nantamu, one week
before her death.
Why
couldn’t this trip’s terse & lamented poem
Had no last verse? [1]
Why
couldn’t this wasted life of yours & mine
Had no last breath?
The last
of this poem
The end of
my voyage
And the
final moment & last breath
That
moment of capricious arrival
January 2000
Justine stands
near her mother's grave. With Caroline Nantamu's death, Justine, Mary,
Patrick and Joseph are orphaned.
Take me
along with Your Divine Self
My love I
beg & my dear I do assent
Take
me along
Promise to
be so contend
Take me
along
Promise to
be so silent
Take me
along
…
[1] Part of
this poem is adapted from a Persian hit song of
70s in Iran sang by both Googoosh and Ebi. Below included the download
for both
singers:
Googoosh,
Hamsafar
Ebi, Hamsafar
Dedication: For my father
Ebrahim.
©
2004-2002, Dara O. Shayda