Olivia Byard: Two Poems

Mansa Musa’s Hajj
(1289 AD)

When the richest
man in history racks up in Cairo,
the awed denizens, dazzled by
his retinue—
twelve thousand slaves
each carrying gold bars, heralds in silks
bearing carved golden staffs, eighty
fine camels with full sacks
of gold dust—
are doubly wowed
when the ingots are handed out
like candy, to the crowd.
But Cairo’s
fragile gold-market, buoyed up
by scarcity, flooded with Mali gold,
capsizes—and worse is
yet to come—
fables grow
of fabulous wealth, the over-lucky
to be plucked, thousands dream
and hack their way back to the source
—Mali is upturned, ready
to be forced.
If only Mansa Musa
had twigged his glut of pretty baubles
would cause such fuss!

                                        Olivia Byard

Besetting Sins
(Hailes Chapel, Gloucestershire)

We stoop and step down
through the low-arched small door
onto a riot of wall paintings.
Among huntsmen,
hounds, saints, and a cornered,
harassed hare, is a small marvel—
a medieval elephant,
painted as imagined by a person
who’d never seen one.
This thirteenth century
beast, painted red with green
cartoonish wings, raises a trunk
shaped like a cleaver to strike
down a cowering griffin.
Delighted, we wonder
if that Islamic artistic flaw,
might not just be in awe of God’s perfection,
but also a homage to our own
wonky wings, wrong angles, pratfalls—
eager,
as we always are, for the next
fabulous tale—and readily smitten
by a plausible elephant.
                     Olivia Byard