Under/Water: Memorial Day, May 31, 2010
- Under/WaterMemorial Day, May 31, 2010
For the departed
For Haïti
And in reference to Asako Narahashi’s ‘half awake and half asleep in the water’
(photograph, 2001)
. . .under water, sinking, eyes closed, listening to the voices the sea, hopeful not to drown remembering, arms wide, mantra: the body is but water and salt . . .will float up . . .sooner or later
. . .deep under, sky water, [End Page 114] salt swimming open eyes. . . .the ocean murmurs from the depths her belly broken, to jagged shore: “this time, I would gladly have taken them in my womb for all eternity” . . .arms stirring blue light staying afloat . . . listening to waves drumming eulogy . . .
…remaining under as long hold of breath, possible …in fear of… surfacing . . . .in fear of …the angry aria of the nameless dead riding the gales, tumbling down defiled mountains over, in defense of wreckage of hurricanes… the sheet of sheen above like ice to break…
treading water, invisibly, slowly, methodically
. . .waters embracing like folds of blankets . . . treading the dark, pensively . . .what could be the answer to the riddle [End Page 115] tectonics, shifts . . . if movement could stop time, turn back clocks, tread she would for seven and a day . . .to reach the hour of before, when an afternoon of slumber meant nothing more than heat, sweat, flies buzzing, the rooster’s cry, thirst for the sea . . .bracing under. . .
. . .descending to the nether, to Vilokan, to dance the dead, the living gods, our ancestors . . . .never to utter, “I’m swamped” . . . . “I’m buried alive” mindless phrases swimming against the ether . . . .all limbs intact to brace against the never . . .to be ever . . . ever again. . . . the never of again . . .
moving very slowly. . . [End Page 116] this is what the sea sung: to carry the dead, as our mothers carried us, not to remain submerged, enfolded in her layers pulsing waters . . . .push . . .the lullaby . . .push, push up . . .
what remains on shore is for us all to bear . . . the air, fresh of despair, the stale hope:
Let us carry our mothers as they have carried us. . . . [End Page 117]
Myriam J. A. Chancy is a Haitian-Canadian writer/scholar born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti (PhD, University of Iowa). Her first novel, Spirit of Haiti (Mango, 2003), was short-listed in the Best First Book Category, Canada/ Caribbean region, of the Commonwealth Prize 2004. She is also the author of Framing Silence: Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women (Rutgers University Press, 1997), Searching for Safe Spaces: Afro-Caribbean Women Writers in Exile (Temple University Press, 1997; Choice OAB Award, 1998), and the novels The Scorpion’s Claw (Peepal Tree Press, 2005) and The Loneliness of Angels (Peepal Tree Press, 2010). She recently completed her third academic work, From Sugar to Revolution: Women’s Visions from Haiti, Cuba and the Dominican Republic, forthcoming from Wilfred Laurier University Press. Her work as editor of Meridians (2002–2004) garnered the CELJ Phoenix Award for Editorial Achievement in 2004. She currently sits on the editorial advisory board of PMLA and is a professor of English at the University of Cincinnati.
