De Gids. Jaargang 153

[p. 586]

Lasana M. Sekou
Twee gedichten

Caribbean journey

Let there be upful ties that bind
let the human circle be unbroken
down sugarcane alleys
we coming
down the Black shack alleys
across the saltpans and pondfills
across the valleys, soothing savannas and down the hillsides
we coming
up through the cotton fields and coal keels
the banana groves and bauxite mines
clappingandbangingandraisingandwashingand
wipingandwavingandfoldingandclaspingandunshackling
Our indigo-dyed hands

Still we trod
through back-a-yard Trenchtowns and Hameau du Pont ghettos
the battered barrios, schemes, and shanties
the villas miserias, the favelas festering of failure
all through the gutted Garden of Eden
under bootstrapped operations and invasions

Still we forward
in our arrow-root songs and uruku-laced dances
raging reggeas and cascading ka danses
spoonfuls of spooge studded in calaloo crowns of kaisos
and heaven-on-earth knows
how much gwoka gems and bales of bachatas
breathing breeding crystals of caseco
meringue mixes and salsa serenades
we have borne
in a joyfully laborious bearing

[p. 587]

 

of cubanjazzedconchshellblowingsteelpanplaying

 

congodrummingsocawailing rhythm styleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

 

while arching backward and thundering forward

 

 

 

under the limbo's ordeal of fire

 

driving mid-passage ceremony passing us to the other side

 

to people the maroon lands

 

to plow-share up the Sierra Maestra ‘ites’

 

to find refuge and renewal

 

in the facial mangroves of the Beloved Bearded Ones

 

in the life-cleansing blood of the She-Saviors

 

 

 

It is true

 

this long journeying night has stained so many of us gray

 

but ‘fear shall fail to conquer our warmth’ -

 

the New Morning is dawning

 

for it is I and I

 

summoning its flaming flamboyant-tipped fingers

 

by the long clanging and soulful humming insistence

 

of our hammers and machetes

 

our tireless digging picks and hoes and shovels and

 

hands

 

of our pounding pens and venerable voices

 

 

 

We shall reclaim the fertile lands

 

we shall

 

raise the masquerade mantels from the face of the Sun

 

lighting for once and for all

 

our forging of the Sighted Scales of Justice

 

we shall prevail over the long suffering

 

we shall continue on ego-less paths

 

planting and harvesting in abundance

 

humanized cultures of Labor

 

 

 

And from wherever

 

our feet pass a pounding plan for peace

 

a fountain of fruits springs a sunrise of prosperity

 

bearing prophetic witness

 

for all to live this Truth -

 

like a kahlil would say -

 

that our ‘Labor is Love made visible’.

[p. 588]

With vision

It is time then
to close ranks
y saludar el advenimiento
de la libertad...

It is our time
to labor in a pedagogy of liberation
to order our reality
through patterns and praxes of our own
to convene
to construct
to conduct

con amor

con los pueblos

con clarividencia... with vision

To make us ever more known

ever more free

ever more solidary

For we are the generation planting seeds and science
to harvest the Age of Fulfillment
we are the precious dew in the New Dawn's forthcoming
‘Trodding thru creation,’ Marley a sing
‘In irie meditation,
Seen many visions,
In a this yah armageddon’

Still we forwarding, hardself
children of pain-planters, bearers of Sun-reapers
whose love and labor will route all betrayers
and melt down the imperial ice giants

[p. 589]

 

And in spite of their ravenous reach

 

we have been weathering the haughty hurricanes

 

underfoot by the cold North

 

giving us no quarter -

 

but see how

 

with these few small stones

 

we have been battling them goliaths

 

so that we may gather our loaves?

 

 

 

And in all the while we been gathering these loaves

 

we been finding calabash splinters with holy inscriptions -

 

‘Like this one?’

 

‘Like this one!’

 

like this one, from Marti,

 

El dice

 

Il dit

 

Hij zeg

 

Him say

 

He said

 

E say:

 

‘The trees must form ranks

 

To keep the giant with seven-league boots from passing;

 

It is time for mobilization

 

Of marching together,

 

And we must go forward

 

In close order,

 

Like silver in the veins of the Andes.’

 

 

 

He must be meaning

 

some say like

 

he must be meaning like the blood of bulls

 

soaked in the fortress walls of Christophe's Citadel

 

like the long stone wreathing walls

 

mending ancestral toil to the land of S'maatin -

 

he must be meaning that too?

 

 

 

It is time then

 

again said and more te be done

 

to form ranks

 

so we will not be slaughtered in solitary confinement

 

by the conquistadores axe

 

like the beautiful ilam-ilam trees

 

chopped from the face of Quisqeya's Puerto Plata.

[p. 590]

José Maria Capricorne, De omhelzing

[p. 591]

José Maria Capricorne, Glimlachend meisje met haan