LIVING OUT OF SUITCASES

LIVING OUT OF SUITCASES

There was a time when everyone lived out of a suitcase!

Not just the homeless, the free spirits and the spirits of the free!

But everyone did live out of a suitcase.

Today, we are going to pastures green;

they said, they packed their yurt

And off they went!

With their herds of sheep

And cows.

 

They churned the milk

into curd! Farmed the land for barley and wheat

They drunk pale ale

Home-made from barley.

Sahra was one of those nomads!

Except with voodoo dolls.

Her dolls lived in a flowery suitcase.

They had their own furniture.

Silverware, a mahogany table of miniature scale, feather beds.

Her dolls cried.

She nursed them to sleep

With curds fresh out of a churn.

She had sewn long robs from

Dyed wools.

For her dolls to wear on

Nomadic celebrations.

They had names like Poppy and Daisy.

Except one of them was a little crazy.

Her name was Tracy.

 

So Tracy the Voodoo doll;

Demanded to put black magic spells

On folks of Sahra

 

Sahra said no!

That was unacceptable

If the crazed doll was to insist on her wanton desires

She was to be evicted,

From her Voodoo doll suitcase.

The crazed doll sulked;

Pursed her lips and pleaded

With Sahra.

Tears of black ink

Came running down

Her pink cheeks.

 

Still Sahra was unyielding

To the doll’s demands.

 

She had to devise a plan;

Tracy the Voodoo doll.

Her urge to rake havoc on folks

Was fundamental to her core.

She was a voodoo doll after all.

A very mischievous kind.

Through and through.

 

One day, when Sahra was out doing her chores,

The doll found a potion.

She cast a spell

A spell which was innate to the voodoo doll.

“Ye wandering folks!

Ye folks who will live out of suitcases

No more!”

She began the rite.

“Let your nomadic spirit be dimmed!

Let your herds be tamed

And be fed on hay!

Let you all be confined between four walls

Contemplating house extensions.”

 

When Sahra came back

She found her folks packing their yurts.

“What’s going on here?”

She yelled.

We are going to build houses out of brick and mortar.

Nomadic ways are no longer for us.

“But, but, but!” pleaded Sahra.

To no avail.

Her folks had made up their minds.

So they left to build houses

And then house extensions.

Sahra was left behind with her herds of sheep.

And a youth of her age.

Today, all the nomadic tribes  all around the world

Are believed to be descendent of Sahra and her young man.