In The Mountans Of Haiti By By Dennis Siluk
In the Mountains of Haiti (In the City) —July is a hot month—sweating Poverty out on every street (In Port de Prince); mixing Memory with desire causes stirring. Not much rain in Haiti (in 1986); Summer kept us busy, building A medical clinic, in the mountains…. (In the Mountains) —A new life, for the dried-up village. With only a shower of sun-beams (Resting) coming over my shoulders I stopped work to rest—; The others (young) kept working in the sun, They all got sick—bed-ridden. And my teammates became frightened. (Night comes) —A heap of fragmented images Where the sun-beams used to beat (And the dried up foliage gave no shelter) Gave-way, to the sounds of crickets And night’s voodoo drums. Shadows from rocks—extended out Seemed to shout, shout—talk!... (Night
Noises)—I never knew what they were thinking Somehow, they seem to speak to me now. Footsteps; fires crackling; voices chanting: By bushes, tress, and huts—all about; All nightly noises that never stopped— No wind under the door—nothing; You see, know nothing—only hear (…you are alive).
Note [#777; 7/27/05]: The author spent some time in Port de Prince,
Haiti, at an Orphanage doing some work with the children; helped
put on a puppet show; as well as the author spending some time in
the mountains of Haiti, doing some work on building a medical clinic
with a team from his church for a village that had no medical means;
19-students; he was the elder you could say, or one of the two; back
in 1986. |