At times when politicians want to divide us, in my fiction, non-fiction and verse I want to celebrate our common humanity!
Confluence brings together musicians, dancers and poets who have made their home in Oxford. Confluence invites diverse communities to share their cultures. The events are open to anyone and are free. In this poem I celebrate the idea of coming together. Friends around the world please talk up organisations like these that bring us together.

Creative Confluence by Sylvia Vetta

Streams spring from the hills
and swell with the spring rain.
People come to the city.
More and more people come.
In the city they sing alone in
tongues of Babel .

Come together pleads the man
Flow together echoes the dancing woman.

She dances to the sitar and the guitar.
Male and female voices sing to the tabla’s beat.
‘Improvise’ demands the drummer.
Words come as the rivers of Oxford rise.
Words from the Tigris and the Indus
Rhythms of India and Africa.

Come together pleads the man
Flow together echoes the dancing woman.

Wells of joy spring from Ethiopia and Kenya
From Bosnia and Brazil
Mardi Gras meets Bach and Persian lute
Babel ? No Babel ?
The music of their souls combine to
harmonise and improvise.

Come together pleads the man
Flow together echoes the dancing woman.
- Sylvia Vetta
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