Passages for RC- A SONG FOR HAITI OR WHY I HATE THE COLOUR PINK

Posted by anupam singh on June 9, 2010

A Song For Haiti

PROLOGUE :

the day i born in you

you open the out side world to me

you let me see the in side of your goodness

when I first breath my first breath it is in you

In you i finding me the people who I am

In you I see my family and world.

walking down the fields of familys, and valliages of homes

I hear mama call me, “Lovely, Lovely”

I see your picture . A picture of happiness, peace, and lovely beauty. The day I went and met you at the river, I see me and see the beautiful water that cleaning you. Now today I see you, I don not see you in flash back no more. I see you in T.V. The bad have come and there no more life in you

WHY I HATE PINK :

A NARRATIVE POEM BY AN IMMIGRANT TEENAGED GIRL FROM HAITI.

” Let me begin with a caveat to you and all those who find these pages. Do not trust large bodies of water,  and do not cross them. If you, Dear Reader, have an African hue and find yourself led toward water, with vanishing shores, seize your freedom by any means necessary. And cultivate distrust of the colour pink. Pink is taken as the colour of innocence, the colour of childhood, but as it spills across the water in the light of the dying sun, do not fall into its pretty path. There, right underneath, lies a bottomless graveyard of children, mothers and men. I shudder to imagine all the Africans rocking in the deep. Every time I have sailed the seas, I have had the sense of gliding over the unburied. Some people call the sunset a creation of extraordinary beauty, and proof of God’s existence. But what benevolent force would bewitch the human spirit by choosing pink to light the path of a slave vessel?”

— from ‘Someone Knows My Name’ by Lawrence Hill

“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas in incarnadine,
Making the green one red.”

— William Shakespeare, Macbeth (Act 2, Scene 2)

NOTE : “Incarnadine “ – noun, crimson or pinkish-red color; variant of ‘incarnatino’ or ‘flesh color’, based on Latin ‘incarnare’ – Concise Oxford English Dictionary.

WHY I HATE THE COLOR PINK – A narrative Poem

As a child of Ten

I would, in evenings, Often,

Stand upon the Haitian Shores Atlantic

And watch the angry waves, frantic

Break upon my homeland’s sandy beaches

Then, I knew my sea to be just Green, Blue, Blue-green,

That day I sat there on a friendly familiar rock

And gazed at what promise the Western Horizon held for me,

I knew not then,

I would only be able to return when

My sea would by dry of tears

And my world would be shattered by nameless fears.

As I sat there then,

I loved it best, when

I would be drowsy with the beauty and the dance

Of a wave playfully kissing my feet, perchance;

And I would barely have time to say hello

When my mom would call & it was time-to-go.

But, I would tarry awhile,

To say goodbye to my watery bluegreen friend,

Say to him “Stay true to me, till the end”

Then, as a child’s Parting Gift, untie my ribbon Red

Gently place upon the ebbing tide, and watch, as it sped

Without changing color –its own or the sea’s –still Blue, green and Red.

Then years went by

And home and Haiti were like a hazy fog,

Now my American schooldays were like slog, slog, slog.

But still, for the shoretimes spent, I would long

To you, My Friend The Eternal Sea,

I write and dedicate this song !

Then, one fateful day in January,

I was dressing for school, in a hurry,

When Cassandra, crying to our room sped :

Bev! Our home, our home, our folks, our land !

Destroyed. Razed to the ground and people dead

Vanished ! as  by a Magician’s Sleight of Hand !

What will we do?

Where is our uncle, our aunts, our Cousins??

Our lovely little house, no more??

Who to ask?

What to do?

So many questions shouting in my ear;

And Answers? None. I fear, fear, fear !

A week later,

With my dad I fly

Like a sad, angry Homing Pigeon Free,

With no letter to deliver,

Just My Dear Old Friend The Sea,

How I long to see, hear and feel Her !

I saw the damaged houses

I saw the cracked-open streets.

I saw the carrion feeding upon the dead

I saw my folks wandering, lost and naked

I saw the lives uprooted and shattered

I saw that, now, Nothing Mattered !

Why are the folks nowhere to be seen ?

“Some have been buried, some just swallowed by the Earth,

“Some were by vultures picked clean

“But most, my dad told me ;

“Could not even get so lucky,

“They were simply dumped into the Sea. !”

The Sea

The Sea !

My Old Friend, the good old

Blue-green Sea !

I longed to share my grief

With My childhood friend, the Sea.

Soon as I could,

There I was, I stood

Upon the childhood’s Shore

My Sea-friend? Nowhere to be seen !

It was Blue-green No More:

It was a gory, bloody Incarnadine !!

______________________________________________

EPILOGUE :

And do not show me flesh AGAIN !

And do not talk to me of Voyages Across THE SEAS,

And Pink, which was my favorite THEN

And Now, if I see the color : I FREEZE !

Now, I never mix my REDS with WHITE,

Watchin’ yer own, floating dead – it’s a ghastly SIGHT !

______________________________________________

THE END

Dated : June 8, 2010, Miami Dade, Florida, USA