because it’s the first word your father learns to scratch into the dirt with a stick on the packed earth floor of the village school where the children sit on burlap sacks, brown faces upturned towards a master they beg to teach them a way out and someday, decades later, they replace those sticks with pens and then hope and then forgetfulness—but the first ੴ2 remains etched in their hearts
because your dirty five-year-old fist clutches a popsicle given to you by the farm owner who never says this word and you notice its omission, so you say it for him: ੴ3
and you believe the last word to ride the last breath out of your father’s broken body is the one he cherished most: ੴ4
and you wonder if ੴ5 is the first word your mother learned to cling to
and when in the dead heat of summer they place 80 pounds of fruit on your mother’s 105 pound frame again and again because what migrant body does not know how to labour and she walks from one end of a field to the other it’s the word she recites ad nauseum like an addendum to a litany for survival that your lips will learn too: ੴ6 ੴ7 ੴ8
and it’s the only word you can use to staunch the to heal the :ੴ9
but it’s the one word that fails you when you’re attacked on the street and the cells in your body scream flee far, flee fast, flee now
endless nows that string together to walk you through that single word and to the other side of fear: ੴ10
Footnotes
- Ik Onkar, also spelled Ek Onkar
- in Gurmukhi: ੴor ਇੱਕ ਓਅੰਕਾਰ
- Punjabi pronunciation: [ɪkː oːəŋkaːɾᵊ]
- literally, “There is only one God or one Creator or one Om-maker”
- a phrase in Sikhism that denotes that there is one supreme reality
- the only written word recognized by an illiterate Punjabi woman
- an uttering used while foraging for strength
- a word embedded in your head
- and sometimes your heart
- a soothing balm
Moni Brar comes from a long lineage of illiterate subsistence farmers. She is the winner of writing prizes from Grain, The Fiddlehead, PRISM, Room, CV2, and The Ex-Puritan.
Questions and Answers
How/where do you find inspiration today?
I come from generations of farmers, so I’ve always felt a deep connection to land. I grew up playing in fields—cotton and sugar cane in India, and then berry fields in BC. Land continues to be the foundation of inspiration for my writing and my life. I find it hard to write without referencing land as many of my memories are rooted in place. I hold a colossal love for trees and weeds, so the highlight of my day is a long walk that allows me to step away from the busyness of life and focus on finding inspiration for my writing through observation of and presence on the land.
As a published writer, what are your tips or words of motivation for the aspiring poet?
Stick with it and embrace it all. Writing poetry is hard—it takes courage to write about things that may be deeply personal, to be vulnerable to exposing yourself on the page. The poetry writing process can magnify emotions, but it’s also an opportunity to engage in meaning-making of events or experiences that may be difficult to make sense of. There can be something deeply satisfying (sometimes, even exhilarating!) to cast the internal onto a page, to see it as something you can shape and share if you choose.
What inspired or motivated you to write this poem?
This poem arose out of my need to write as a way of processing my father’s sudden death. My father was a complex and deeply religious man. After he died, I was left with many questions, but the one I struggled with the most was: What mattered to him? This led me to one Punjabi word that he held dearly, above all else. When I started to unpack what this word meant to him, it also led me to reflect how this word had permeated the lives of everyone in my family and how we each continue to carry the weight and comfort of this word with us.