IV
Poems from:
THE RIVER IS RISING
AUTUMN HOUSE PRESS, 2007
I will bring back my exiled people. . .
they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. . .
—AMOS 9:14
THE RIVER IS RISING
a song for Liberian women
The river is rising, and this is not a flood.
After years of drought, the ground, hardened
and caked in blood, in dry places, here we are, today.
Riverbanks are swelling with the incoming tide,
coming in from the Atlantic just beyond the ridge
of rolling hills and rocks in Monrovia.
Finally, here we stand at the banks!
Finally, here we are, see how swiftly
the tide rushes in to fill the land with salt.
Fish and crabs and the huge clams and shrimps—
all the river’s creatures are coming in with the tide.
The river is rising, but this is not a flood.
Do not let your eye wander away from this scene.
Yes, all the bones below the Mesurado or the St. Paul
or Sinoe or the Loffa River will be brought up
to land so all the overwhelming questions
can once more overwhelm us.
But they are bringing in our lost sister
on a high stool, and there she stands, waving at those
who in refusing to die, simply refused to die.
This is not a song for Ellen alone. This is a song
for Mapue and Tenneh and all the Ellens there are.
This is a song for Kimah and Musu and Massa.
This is for Nyeneplue and Nyenoweh, for Kou and Glayee
and Korto, for the once solitary woman of war.
This is a song so Wani will also dance.
This is a song for that small girl-child who came out
just this morning. They are still seeking a name
to call her—a river name, a name from the water
and from the fire too. That solitary mother in flight
will no longer birth her child by the roadside
where shells were her baby’s first bed.
Let the womb quiver!
Let church bells jingle!
Let hundreds of drums pound, Klan-klan-teh!
Let men bring out old trumpets
so the wind will take flight!
Let that small pepper bird on the tree branch
cry and sing no more the solitary song.
Let the Mesurado behind my home or what was
my home or still is or maybe, maybe, who cares?
The river is rising, but this is not a flood.
Let no man stand between us
and the river again!
IN THE RUINED CITY: A POEM FOR MONROVIA
In the Ruined City, the water flaps lightly
against the beach at night.
It is August, after too many years,
the rain still pours down like stones.
The Atlantic always knows when to go to sleep,
but all the girls roam dark nights
and men have forgotten they are still men.
Monrovia has lost its name.
The ocean roars like wild fire.
It roars like a hungry lion at dawn,
like the whirlwind.
In the ruined city, all the girls
have legs made from plastic weapons,
and the boys pretend it is okay
for the once beautiful girls to walk
around on plastic legs.
There is little time for weeping,
and all the world stands silent.
There are no more trumpets or drums.
The dancer who lost his legs
in the war now sits by the roadside, waiting.
It is something to lose your legs to a war,
they say, to Charles Taylor’s ugly war,
where the fighter cannot recall why he still fights.
The men have forgotten they used to be men,
and the women sit by the roadside wondering
what has happened to this land.
If those outside of here do not come,
Liberia will drown in this rain.
Outside my window, the rain taps hard
in Old Road Sinkor, for my homecoming.
Only the rain knows how to cry.
CITY
At night, it is like fire
spreading beneath us.
This vast city
aflame, and the plane
groaning.
The city is more beautiful
from the sky at night.
At noon, it looks like
a worn-out garage,
a thing in the middle
of swamp country.
All the buildings are worn-out,
rusted to the bone
of steel, twisted
to make way so life
can go on.
Everything is bent and broken
along the hilltops.
I touch air to see if air
is still there.
The touchdown,
and we appear all worn-out,
too, like the city, broken.
All the birds
moved out long ago.
The trees too.
AN ELEGY FOR THE ST. PETER’S CHURCH MASSACRED
I fled the war in that first ceasefire.
Missing all the other wars, the other massacres,
the burning and re-burning of Monrovia,
the silencing again of those who had already
been silenced in that first sweep.
My neighbors envied me through dark-eyed lashes,
skeletal cheekbones, and hunger.
I envy those who were massacred.
Those who never saw their killers approach
with heavy boot steps that made no sound
in the dark morning hours.
Those who died in colonies, in one huge group
at the President’s order.
They arrived in death, holding hands—
mothers, hugging their babies, men,
helping their wives over the hills of death;
tal...