The East Coast, Reviewed
I
You leave the North and Saint Lucia tries to kill you.
The Barre de l’Isle is church, the bamboos are priests;
they rub together and hum hosannas. The cliffs are strategic
and death is certain, but you are chosen.
You drive through the lacerations
and soon come upon wider roads.
The emptiness of these roads frightens you.
Behind Dennery broods the Atlantic - winds begin to
strangle you. You have left the comfort of green and inviting;
there are no picture stops here and the snakes aren’t friendly.
The earth here is bleached. This is not the John Compton Highway;
you do not stop to patronise. Stop, taste wisdom: it is the salt
on your lips - it smells like fish. Stop, listen: the Atlantic tells a story.
II
You’re on your knees - it is prayer. The voices of your ancestors
is the Atlantic. The wind wrestles you like an angel. You lose.
You eat the barren soil; the grains cutting your tongue and you bleed.
You can almost taste the iron of your ancestors’ blood.
You drink the seawater; your body shrivels. You swallow their tears
and understand relief. You taste inside their lungs; it tastes like coconuts.
This is communion. She unravels your mind like a mango and shows you freedom:
chained bodies and souls jumping into her tight baptism and
Death becomes their freedom. Your freedom was never beautiful.
It is never lush with vegetation or seething with colonial comfort.
Your freedom is the East Coast, the Atlantic.
III
You drive further South and come to Vieux Fort:
Freedom’s capital. You stand under an almond tree
and shelter from the tanning sun. The wind billows:
you inhale - the world is open before you on the yellow grass;
you assort its pieces like a broken mirror: you see the North,
in borrowed robes of freedom; hungry for the South’s truth.
The people escape to the South’s catharsis, as did you. You see
the person you were before communion, modernly enslaved.
You exhale culture, real culture. Your skin is like madras
and you wear it like a uniform. The earth’s secrets unfold before you
and your eyes bleed (that is the price): the land is fertile but stubborn.
Your tongue heals and you speak freedom: creole, born from survival.
Church is over, and you are free now.