Poetry: John Bradburne reads Mutemwa, sings God be in my Head - video

Image JBMS

Today is the 100th birthday of John Bradburne. In this video you can hear a rare archive recording of John reading his poem 'Mutemwa', and then singing the prayer poem 'God be in my Head' by British composer Walford Davies.

Mutemwa Leprosy Settlement was the place where John stayed for the last 10 years of his life, caring for the leprosy patients as brothers, sharing everything he had, and refusing to leave them, which ultimately led to his murder on the 5th September 1979. In the video, you will see images of John and his friends past and present.

This is the final day of the John Bradburne Memorial Society 100 days of John Bradburne's poetry.

Watch the video here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wKz79ldLb4

The text of Mtemwa (Mutemwa) follows:

This people, this exotic clan

Of lepers in array

Of being less yet more than man

As man is worn today:

This is a people born to be

Burnt upward to eternity!

*

This strange ecstatic moody folk

Of joy with sorrow merged

Destined to shuffle off the yoke

Of all the world has urged:

This oddity, this Godward school

Sublimely wise, whence, I'm its fool!

*

This ecdysis, this casting off

Of falsehood formed from pride,

This is a little village, doff

Your hats as past you ride:

But past it far you'll never go

Nor fast, since Bundu bids your princely car to slow.

*

This is a fastness none the less because

Fortress it is

Wills time remember

What, before it, was:

Strong hold this lays, and so should lazy I,

Upon the bulwarks of eternity.

*

Hazy are not

These folk, nor forgotten

By Father not far but full near

With His Love for His Only-Begotten.......

'You are cut off' (Mutemwa signifies)

But not from One and all in Him who share His size.

*

As you come down, as down you must

On the winding road in its load of dust,

A wide panorama and wild you scan

Capriciously free from the hand of man, -

The landscape goats and delights to skip

In the green that rhymes with summertime's grip

Or, if in the waning of winter you come

While spring is a-gaining, you'll sing or be dumb

With wonder at seeing an avenue long

Of blue jacarandas whose bloom is their song, -

Stand strong in their century these:

But, do not in viewing 'Halloo'

Till you're out of the wood

Which mentally blocks you from sighting our plight as a good

And keeps you from seeing how lepers can easily leap

Over the nightmare of ill

And that hill so steep:

Mutemwa.

*

This cohort, mixed, mercurial,

This battered, tattered throng,

Goes halt towards its funeral,

Vaults to the Lord in song -

*

Song, and as harsh cacophony

You'd hardly ever find,

But hearts preceded harmony

And The Sacred doesn't mind!

*

Martial, no threnody's the sound,

It storms high heaven's gates

Whence the wounded God who trod sits crowned

And the King of Glory waits

*

On a motley oft so maddening

That soften must my heart

To the sweetness, lowly, gladdening,

Of the Master of my art.

In the second part of the video, you will hear John's beautiful singing of 'God be in my Head' by Walford Davies.

God be in my head

And in my understanding.

God be in mine eyes

And in my looking.

God be in my mouth

And in my speaking.

God be in my heart

And in my thinking.

God be at mine end

And at my departing.

LINKS

This song is available on the Alive to God CD on: www.johnbradburne.com

John Bradburne Memorial Society - www.johnbradburne.com

John Bradburne Poems - www.johnbradburnepoems.com

Mutemwa; www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wKz79ldLb4