The Poetry of Derek Walcott 1948-2013 (17 page)

and only the name of the fool changes

under the plumed white cork-hat

for the Independence Parades

revolving around, in calypso,

to the brazen joy of the tubas.

Why are the eyes of the beautiful

and unmarked children

in the uniforms of the country

bewildered and shy,

why do they widen in terror

of the pride drummed into their minds?

Were they truer, the old songs,

when the law lived far away,

when the veiled queen, her girth

as comfortable as cushions,

upheld the orb with its stern admonitions?

We wait for the changing of statues,

for the change of parades.

Here he comes now, here he comes!

Papa! Papa! With his crowd,

the sleek, waddling seals of his Cabinet,

trundling up to the dais,

as the wind puts its tail between

the cleft of the mountains, and a wave

coughs once, abruptly.

Who will name this silence

respect? Those forced, hoarse hosannas

awe? That tin-ringing tune

from the pumping, circling horns

the New World? Find a name

for that look on the faces

of the electorate. Tell me

how it all happened, and why

I said nothing.

DREAD SONG

Forged from the fire of Exodus

the iron of the tribe,

bright as the lion light, Isaiah,

the anger of the tribe

that the crack must come

and sunder the stone

and the sky-stone fall

on Babylon, Babylon,

the crack in the prison wall

in the chasm of tenements

when the high, high C, Joshua

cry, as I for my tribe:

but in the black markets

lizard-smart poets

selling copper tributes

changing skin with the tribe

and the tribe still buys it

the dreams and the lies

that there'll come to market

as the brethren divide

like the Red Sea to Moses

halt by Aaron's rod

the rod which is both serpent

and staff of brotherhood

more cripples like questions

on the snakes of black tires

Solomon in black glasses

hiding his eyes

shaking hands all round

statistics and jiving

to the clapping of the tribe;

Economics and Exodus,

embrace us within

bracket and parenthesis

their snake arms of brotherhood

(the brackets of the bribe)

Want to open your mouth, then?

Shake your dread locks, brethren?

and see one door yawn wide,

then the lion-den of prison,

sky mortar like stone;

Brothers in Babylon, Doc! Uncle! Papa!

Behind the dark glasses

the fire is dying

the coal of my people;

no vision, no flame,

no deepness, no danger,

more music, less anger

more sorrow, less shame

more talk of the River

that wash out my name

let things be the same

forever and ever

the faith of my tribe.

NAMES

for Edward Brathwaite

    
I

My race began as the sea began,

with no nouns, and with no horizon,

with pebbles under my tongue,

with a different fix on the stars.

But now my race is here,

in the sad oil of Levantine eyes,

in the flags of the Indian fields,

I began with no memory,

I began with no future,

but I looked for that moment

when the mind was halved by a horizon,

I have never found that moment

when the mind was halved by a horizon

for the goldsmith from Benares,

the stone-cutter from Canton,

as a fishline sinks, the horizon

sinks in the memory.

Have we melted into a mirror,

leaving our souls behind?

The goldsmith from Benares,

the stone-cutter from Canton,

the bronzesmith from Benin.

A sea-eagle screams from the rock,

and my race began like the osprey

with that cry,

that terrible vowel,

that I!

Behind us all the sky folded,

as history folds over a fishline,

and the foam foreclosed

with nothing in our hands

but this stick

to trace our names on the sand

which the sea erased again, to our indifference.

    
II

And when they named these bays

bays,

was it nostalgia or irony?

In the uncombed forest,

in uncultivated grass

where was there elegance

except in their mockery?

Where were the courts of Castille,

Versailles' colonnades

supplanted by cabbage palms

with Corinthian crests,

belittling diminutives,

then, little Versailles

meant plans for a pigsty,

names for the sour apples

and green grapes

of their exile.

Their memory turned acid

but the names held,

Valencia glows

with the lanterns of oranges,

Mayaro's

charred candelabra of cocoa.

Being men, they could not live

except they first presumed

the right of every thing to be a noun.

The African acquiesced,

repeated, and changed them.

Listen, my children, say:

moubain
:        the hogplum,

cerise
:              the wild cherry,

baie-la
:            the bay,

with the fresh green voices

they were once themselves

in the way the wind bends

our natural inflections.

These palms are greater than Versailles,

for no man made them,

their fallen columns greater than Castille,

no man unmade them

except the worm, who has no helmet,

but was always the emperor,

and children, look at these stars

over Valencia's forest!

Not Orion,

not Betelgeuse,

tell me, what do they look like?

Answer, you damned little Arabs!

Sir, fireflies caught in molasses.

SAINTE LUCIE

 

    
I   THE VILLAGES

Laborie, Choiseul, Vieuxfort, Dennery,

from these sun-bleached villages

where the church-bell caves in the sides

of one gray-scurfed shack that is shuttered

with warped boards, with rust

with crabs crawling under the house-shadow

where the children played house;

a net rotting among cans, the sea-net

of sunlight trolling the shallows

catching nothing all afternoon,

from these I am growing no nearer

to what secret eluded the children

under the house-shade, in the far bell, the noon's

stunned amethystine sea,

something always being missed

between the floating shadow and the pelican

in the smoke from over the next bay

in that shack on the lip of the sandpit

whatever the seagulls cried out for

with the gray drifting ladders of rain

and the great gray tree of the waterspout,

for which the dolphins kept diving, that

should have rounded the day.

    
II

Pomme arac,

otaheite apple,

pomme cythere,

pomme granate,

moubain,

z'anananas

the pine apple's

Aztec helmet,

pomme,

I have forgotten

what pomme for

the Irish potato,

cerise,

the cherry,

z'aman

sea-almonds

by the crisp

sea-bursts,

au bord de la 'ouviere.

Come back to me

my language.

Come back,

cacao,

grigri,

solitaire,

ciseau

the scissor-bird

no nightingales

except, once

in the indigo mountains

of Jamaica, blue depth,

deep as coffee,

flicker of pimento,

the shaft light

on a yellow ackee

the bark alone bare

jardins

en montagnes

en haut betassion

the wet leather reek

of the hill donkey

evening opens at

a text of fireflies,

in the mountain huts

ti cailles betassion

candles,

candleflies

the black night bending

cups in its hard palms

cool thin water

this is important water,

important?

imported?

water is important

also very important

the red rust drum

of evening deep

as coffee

the morning powerful

important coffee

the villages shut

all day in the sun.

In the empty schoolyard

teacher dead today

the fruit rotting

yellow on the ground

dyes from Gauguin

the pomme arac dyes

the earth purple,

the ochre roads

still waiting in the sun

for my shadow,

O so you is Walcott?

you is Roddy brother?

Teacher Alix son?

and the small rivers

with important names.

And the important corporal

in the country station

en betassion

looking towards the thick

green slopes of cocoa

the sun that melts

the asphalt at noon,

and the woman in the shade

of the breadfruit bent over

the lip of the valley,

below her, blue-green

the lost, lost valleys

of sugar, the bus-rides,

the fields of bananas

the tanker still rusts

in the lagoon at Roseau,

and around what corner

was uttered a single

yellow leaf,

from the frangipani

a tough bark, reticent,

but when it flowers

delivers hard lilies,

pungent, recalling

Martina, or Eunice

or Lucilla,

who comes down the steps

with the cool, side flow

as spring water eases

over shelves of rock

in some green ferny hole

by the road in the mountains,

her smile like the whole country

her smell, earth,

red-brown earth, her armpits

a reaping, her arms

saplings, an old woman

that she is now,

with other generations

of daughters flowing

down the steps,

gens betassion,

belle ti fille betassion,

until their teeth go,

and all the rest,

O Martinas, Lucillas,

I'm a wild golden apple

that will burst with love,

of you and your men,

those I never told enough

with my young poet's eyes

crazy with the country,

generations going,

generations gone,

moi c'est gens St. Lucie.

C'est la moi sorti;

is there that I born.

 

    
III   IONA: MABOUYA VALLEY

(Saint Lucian
conte
or narrative song, heard on the back of an open truck travelling to Vieuxfort, some years ago)

     

Ma Kilman, Bon Dieu kai punir 'ous,

Pour qui raison parcequi'ous entrer trop religion.

Oui, l'autre cote, Bon Dieu kai benir 'ous,

Bon Dieu kai benir 'ous parcequi 'ous faire charite l'argent.

Corbeau aille Curacao, i' voyait l'argent ba 'ous,

Ous prend l'argent cela

Ous mettait lui en cabaret.

Ous pas ka lire, ecrire, 'ous pas ka parler Anglais,

Ous tait supposer ca; cabaret pas ni benefice.

L'heure Corbeau devirait,

L'tait ni, I' tait ni l'argent,

L'heure i'rivait ici,

Oui, maman! Corbeau kai fou!

Iona dit Corbeau, pendant 'ous tait Curacao,

Moi fait deux 'tits mamaille, venir garder si c'est ca 'ous.

Corbeau criait “Mama! Bon soir, messieurs, mesdames,

Lumer lampe-la ba mwen

Pour moi garder ces mamailles-la!”

Corbeau virait dire: “Moi save toutes les negres ka semble,

I peut si pas ca moin,

Moi kai soigner ces mamailles-la!”

Oui, Corbeau partit, Corbeau descend Roseau,

Allait chercher travail, pourqui 'peut soigner ces mamailles-la,

Iona dit Corbeau pas tait descendre Roseau,

Mais i' descend Roseau, jamettes Roseau tomber derriere-i'

Phillipe Mago achetait un sax bai Corbeau,

I' pas ni temps jouer sax-la,

Sax-man comme lui prendre la vie-lui.

Samedi bon matin, Corbeau partit descendre en ville,

Samedi apres-midi, nous 'tendre la mort Corbeau.

Ca fait moi la peine; oui, ca brulait coeur-moin,

Ca penetrait moin, l'heure moin 'tendre la mort Corbeau.

Iona dit comme-ca: ca qui fait lui la peine,

Ca qui brulait coeur-lui: saxophone Corbeau pas jouer.

Moin 'tendre un corne cornait

a sur bord roseaux-a,

Moi dit: “Doux-doux, moin kai chercher volants ba 'ous”

L'heure moin 'rivait la, moin fait raconte epi Corbeau,

I' dit: “Corne-la qui cornait-a,

c'est Ionia ka cornait moin.”

Guitar-man la ka dire:

“Nous tous les deux c'est guitar-man,

Pas prendre ca pour un rien,

C'est meme beat-la nous ka chember.”

Iona mariee, Dimanche a quatre heures.

Mardi, a huit heures, i' aille l'hopital.

I' fait un bombe, mari-lui cassait bras-lui.

L'heure moi joindre maman-ous,

Moin kai conter toute ca 'ous 'ja faire moin.