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Ten Pieces for Rwanda - Poem
African American Review, Winter, 2002
Ten Pieces for Rwanda Rwanda #1 This woman's body is blistered with death. Soon her swollen arms will break her bonds; The heated water of her body will splay The ground where she lies and bless it. Her head lies five feet away from her body Screaming silence. The dust of revolution Chokes her mouth. Her eyes bleed sunlight. Sweet death is the harvest of this land. This woman is but one victim who ran As far as she could to escape the machete Which with one immaculate swing severed Her body from its intangible soul. Who in this village, seeing such a sight, Dare speak, with a civilized tongue Forbidding the earth to welcome another Living being into corruption? Rwanda #2 I have eaten the geography of meridians and longitudes There is no north which will lead me to safety To the place which gave birth to me. The crust of snow has been sifted with blood A white temperature locks my teeth My throat is the fastest luge ever! Speed melts the sizzling ice Winners are duly cheered. There is no generous way to arrive at success. Rwanda #3 I have eaten the last of the evening's snow A white temperature locks my teeth My throat is a fast luge tunnel The ribbon that marks the winner Is lost in the celebration of my stomach. There is no match for the darkness there; Snowlight is a flood on space; Speed melts the sizzling ice. Rwanda #4 Four black men swing in the dancing air They are connected by an electrical thread An acrid smell tells me they are dead Their spirits sing of a time That was greenly sad and unfair Theirs is a song willed to the wind. Who can document their offense Their human sin? Who among us Can sing of joy with our feet bound, Our hands tied behind our backs? Rwanda #5 The trees look starved; Their leaves are gone. The youngest of the flowers Lie strewn and dead in the roads. The neighbors, who are left, Take staggering breaths and Continue to breath beneath The dark burden of their eyelids. There are no bright solutions. Only the dark may be severed by lightening. Its energy surpasses the true explanations, How these times and angers knotted themselves In the back and in the neck Growing into incurable tumors. The bread I bake is made of blood and earth; Its taste is withered leaf and dry bark. Rwanda #6 John Deere shovels bite into the ground They unearth huge trenches They lift large stacks of bodies And plant them side by side. The land is covered over, Seeded with new grass and trees. No one can repair the air. This is a place of rest. No one can repair the air. The rain baptizes; silt weds rock. A new balm is prescribed For all the pains left behind. Rwanda #7: Instant Replay With easy malice one African severs another man's head. The ground sprouts bodies like rotting potatoes. There is no water here; the land is dry and begging. The eyes are astonished continents away. The heart trembles then stops; the machete has no blood of its own. Where are the rain and snow that cleanse? A body writhes in the dust; its head toils in the river. The river laughs; the land has nothing to say. I shall remember these deaths with praises and psalms; I feel their spirits winding themselves around the roots of trees. There will be no bountiful harvests this year. I gather the instant replays of stalks and twigs and empty things. Rwanda #8 And he, who I thought was my neighbor, came with swift and easy hate in his hands, cleft my head from my soul, as I knelt in the dust of our homeland. What spite the land has come to that it should so rage against human nature! Have we not kicked enough stones together? Why has love turned the air to such expense? Where are the waters of cooling pas- sions? My bloated self is rooted in contagion. Ancient angers spread in small rashes. Nothing can ease the interminable itch which attacks the land. Poison seeps from an open boil. If you try to lance it, it disappears from one section of the body and reappears in another. Posion becomes the texture of the wind. I was once rock, bark, earthen jar and moonlight. Now I am fresh sun and rotting flesh. These antique angers which bleonged to my neighbor and to his father are mine now by death and default. Pain is the machete that bit into my life so swift and clean it never tasted blood or stained itself. My body pours itself into the mouth of the earth. It feels the thun- der of hurrying feet wandering into a foreign darkness. The wealth of the nation is silent; it offers no rescue. The pieties of food and shelter are useless. The sun has left the land, the water is fould with intestines. What strange white peace is it which approaches on the wind rising as it must from the sea? Rwanda #9 This salve of youthful blood Balms the sores of the country. Still she does not heal; The wound is too great. The pulse runs in halting breaths Too hard to draw. The trees weep their leaves; Water washes over dry tubers. The tender wood is exposed To lice and vermin; Grey worms exit the body. The river gives an embrace To the floating bodies. Who among the dead Can bury the dead? The land has lost Its sweet negotiations. We turn the earth; Nothing is there. Slowly the land Recedes into water. There are no sacred prayers Found in its folds The sun, the last Of our martyrs Is dead. Rwanda #10 The cranes have come; A steam shovel bites Into the natural ground. Old earth is pushed aside, It lies in large mounds As if some gigantic ant Had burrowed up toward light. Random bushes, grass and a single Stalk of corn begins to grow here The men plant steel rods, girders Cinder blocks, then cement floors. They are making rooms In the spacious air For new tenants. The girders are covered, Wired and walled in With hammered sound. Inside there is a schedule, Outside a deadline to meet. The rain washes the earth The silt flows away. Someone will make passage here Take flights like breaths Of human motion.
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