Poems: Keep On Keepin' On
Text I
In the morning’s mirror
The day proceeds step by baby step
When the dust of the sun smudges the horizon
In the heart of all people in Haiti
Hope lifts anchor
On the open-market’s web
Our spirit yearning for bits of inspiration
We’re resolving our misery’s quandary
And all flowers that have sadly lost their fragrance
Are returning to the nests of their buds
Many minutes slide down
Onto a dawn that stands broken-down
In the focal point of the sky
A big clock’s dancing in folkloric rhythm
To force the dew to flow into leaves
Children are fooling around with the wind
Unwrapping the rope of hopes
In the air
They are flying toward the moon
With their kites
And what we take for beautiful trust
In our consciousness
Are the drawings of the garden we’d want to
Sketch into life
When the morning’s mirror
Pitches out its fragment of shadows
Oh, say!
Will the land lift its head again
Oh! With elegance
Will the sunflower finally rise?
Text III
Where did that death come from?
Circling the border of existence
Whence did that mourning emerge
That weeds out life in the garden of the future
The street develops a sorrow
This long!
All houses are painted the colour of distress
Desolation spreads over all the walls
Alongside all the sidings of farmhouses
It hacks up the cornfields of our heart
Sorrow’s a pair of scissors shearing our hopes
Cutting our spirit into tiny pieces
Birds high up trace a curve ’round the sun
Windmills are turning the wheels of the sea
Chicken-nests flourish on city’s pillars
Thatched houses seem like bones on mountaintops
Where people act like toy soldiers at
Attention!
Their faces bathed in a mist of sadness
Wind balancing on their heads
Women are mountaineering toward
The moon
Keeping perfect symmetry between
Their waists and
The road
They are throwing themselves in front
Of their existence
Throwing their beliefs in the direction of
The stars
Oh, friends,
Looting bedbugs are plucking our patience
Plundering our lovely cherry garden of light
Oh, friends,
Poverty hangs itself on our country’s luggage rack
Desolation is rolling across all mountains and over all plains
Trying to slow down the wheel of our resistance
Text XXIX
A hurricane slaps at the stars
And a downpour of lightning strikes the universe
People in the corridor of their existence
Start yelling for help!
Children break into a run
Birds dash at high speed toward
The centre of a falling star
The wind lifts my town high up
And dashes it to the ground
Houses break into tiny pieces
The church crumbles and spreads over the waterfront
Streets tumble into ravines
People!
The wind has killed God the Father
Everyone on their knees
Let's telephone the Virgin Mary
Hello, Jesus, Hello, Mary!
Where does this fire of wind come from?
That is burning our souls
Wind turning hope upside down
Murdering our common sense
Strangling our patience
Throwing our lives
Into the abyss
People!
There's a pile-up of wind on top of Central America
Where trucks are lying wheels in the air
A pile-up of tornadoes embracing the earth
Throwing stars around God's spiritual houses
People!
A shard of a bottle tears the face of St. George
Werewolves bite the butt of a butler
Dust mixed with rock stones the moon
People!
The wind's blowing on our hearts
The rain's scattering the sorrow inside us
All the fires are dying in the stars
Life has surrendered to the attack of the rain
And the hurricane is coming back
With its pile-up of abysmal
Wind
Poems taken from Keep On Keepin' On, by Josaphat-Robert Large, translated from Haitian Creole by Jack Hirschman with the participation of Boadiba: iUniverse Incorporated, March 2006
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