10. Ka Ïing I Mei – Home

The title can be literally translated into ‘The House that belongs to my Mother’ or ‘My Mother’s Home’. Here ‘Mei’ refers both to the biological mother and to the poet’s homeland, for both have nurtured the poet’s being. With the dawn of hope and light in the preceding section it is natural that the poet now describes what it feels like to be home. He goes back in time to his childhood and to the daily rituals of life where the sacred codes of life are affirmed. He finally moves on to describe the rituals of death looking forward to the concluding lines of Ki Sngi Barim where he talks of arriving at the House of God – the everlasting mother of all homes and sanctuaries. But what is always characteristic and remarkable about Soso Tham is that his presentation of the most weighty and serious of subjects always possesses an inescapable energy. Because for him his culture is one that so obviously lives, he cannot but describe it in dynamic and vivid terms. Even the rendition of the cremation ceremonies is undeniably joyful.