L’Ouverture, in Dreams

I glimpse but don’t fully grasp

the reason for the haunting

or why David’s chanting shangos

in and out my head. Unsung

Jacobins extend their reach

into my exile, across dark

unending chapters they grip

tight. I turn the news, again,

flick through, pick

through rubble spanning ages

and stumble upon beauty,

like a fortress, facing me;

The features akin to mine,

that might have been (and

might have been) but

for kinks in Geography

and History twisting

triangles and dreams.


© Linda M. Deane. (Read as a prayer for Haiti at the launch of Dorothea Smartt’s Ship Shape at the Waterfront Café, January 16, 2010.)