In the Mountans of Haiti

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.

Poet, Dennis Siluk http://dennissiluk.tripod.com