PHASES
by Modeste Downes, from the collection Phases
I first met you,
At the base of this fair land,
Nursing a strange quiet;
Only your nascent babbling,
Mingled with the perfume of fish gut
Divulged your carefree existence.
I shall never forget those years
When King Sugar ruled,
Its leafy blades
Grafting incisions on the labourer’s arms
Echoing the tale of voices
Lost in a hitlerite camp.
Naked you lay
Your fingers spread idle
And your virginal sheath, open,
Exposing your undefiled body,
Willing bedpartner
To all who were equipped
To capture your maidenhead for the right price.
So exposed, and so disposed,
You saw them come:
Uncle Sam strategically dispatched Joe
To penetrate and excavate
And redesign your contours—
Without measure, without limit;
Plugging your cleavage,
Hurting your agricultural instincts
To serve his soldiering intent—
Without measure, without limit.
Strangely those parts embraced by Joe
He deemed out of bounds to the native child.
Handouts in return for his pleasure he gave
To little black parentless children
Extending brown, dirty palms,
Palms of hands better fit to waddle,
To waddle in the polluted,
Leechy waters of the ‘Canal Zone.’
Until…
The war was over,
Unknown to Joe, still lying
On your now scarcely recognizable,
Flattened breasts;
No sugar left,
River diverted,
Pick’ny hungry,
Immorality bred,
And like a morbid rash
Inertia inherited.
But for fornicating you
He did implant
Lights, stand pipes, and asphalt roads
Houses, hospitals and harbor works
The stock balance of his endearment to you.
Alas, desertion left you empty and gaping
But bearing no grudge, you carried the sin
Made heavier by dark-green zeb-gwa
Campeche and gommier
Like a farmhand’s abandoned cabet
Overpowering you:
End of a phase.
The Whiteman gone—
Leaving Bruce and others clinging
To a dream of compensation!
But bursting forth
Like a sudden volcanic eruption
The era of green gold!
In glided Papa Geest with his ships
Comfortably berthed along Joe’s piers,
Until then, a corpse
Frequented only by Fish Jwah,
Botica, Alcide, and other self-styled master fishermen;
And so, you survived another phase.
…Years strolled along
Like centuries.
…Then entered Whitey again
In robes of silk
Implanting more tools inside your body
Reconstructing your freckled face
To add new dimension
To save body and soul;
And alongside Joe’s leftover infrastructure
A statue—tangible symbol of commitment erected,
‘Patron of the hopeless’ carved at its feet.
Missionary damsels did cuddle
Little black pick’nys
Unlike before them, pioneering Mothers—
Unwavering, unembracing,
Locked in the cocoon of white habits
(As if) for protection.
But those Judean ladies did exude
Hope and charity
A modus vivendi
For a new Christianity
As they burrowed and took root in your bosom.
Then
Maple Leaves floated in with a mission,
In hordes they came:
Friends from North in search of adventure,
The Big Bamboo or unfamiliar pleasure;
Seeking refuge too from bitter winters.
Halcyon were the days, I’ve heard it said,
When highfalutin generosity
Fed practitioners on crumbs—
Another phase.
A dashingly bold and pretentious plan
Hailed investment by invitation,
Importers and exporters of merchandise, unfinished, intransit.
They came in varied shapes
From all lands and climes:
Milton Bradley, Hortex, Cariman,
Taiwanese, Chinese and Korean
Pantyhose designers,
Rubber glove manufacturers,
Zooming in and out by night
Treading the extent of your body
Sentencing you again to near servility.
Lord, how you must have winced in pain
And wept at the denial of little gain
For which your guardians did plead;
Choice was a thousand mouths to feed.
But still
On to another phase, you crawled
As the architects of change
And moulders of destiny
Pin a twisted tag unto your shoulders:
The new frontier of Growth, Progress and Prosperity.
I hear others chant
I see them toast;
But you, though expectant
Wary, conscious and skeptical
You greet the news
Knowing what you already know,
You merely stare and ask:
Just another phase?
Today I stand high up on Moule-a-Chique
With eyes aglow, like your lonely lighthouse,
And gazing down at you, I behold
Your partly covered breasts
Your languid arms
Your obedient legs, outstretched
(As if on rubber hinges);
Your sensuous lips are poised to welcome more,
Much more of what they gave before,
In spite of it all;
Only this time
Your maiden voice is cracked
Your hopes and aspirations bared
Your ripened, misused body
Craves to be held up and caressed
Not exploited,
Not prostituted.
This time around
You have borne children,
And like a flock of untrusting pitchwit
Cruising the beach,
They tag along with you
Demanding to be
Participants,
not bystanders;
Partners,
not observers;
And if this phase should fail
No more shall the morning sunrise
Over at Lonely Tree’s bushy head
Keep hope alive;
And I shall not be around
To watch you pick up the pieces.
