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, eyesclosed, listeningto the voicesthe sea, hopefulnot to drownremembering,arms wide, mantra:the body is but waterand salt… will float up… sooner or later
… deep under,sky water,salt swimmingopeneyes. … the ocean murmurs [End Page 435] from the depthsher bellybroken, to jagged shore:"this time,I would gladly have taken themin my wombfor all eternity"… arms stirring blue lightstaying afloat …listening to waves drumming eulogy …
… remaining underas long hold of breath, possible… in fear of … surfacing. … in fear of … the angry ariaof the nameless deadriding the gales,tumbling downdefiled mountains over,in defense ofwreckageof hurricanes …the sheet of sheen abovelike iceto break …
treading water, invisibly, slowly, methodically
… waters embracinglike folds of blankets …treading the dark, pensively …what could be the answerto the riddletectonics, shifts …if movementcould stop time,turn back [End Page 436] clocks,tread she wouldfor seven and a day… to reach the hour of before,when an afternoonof slumbermeant nothing morethan heat, sweat, flies buzzing,the rooster's cry, thirstfor the sea… bracing under …
… descendingto the nether,to Vilokan, to dancethe dead, the livinggods, our ancestors. … never to utter, "I'm swamped". … "I'm buried alive"mindless phrasesswimmingagainst the ether. … all limbsintact to braceagainst the never… to be ever …ever again. …the neverof again …
movingvery slowly …thisis what the sea sung:to carry the dead,as our motherscarried us,not to remain [End Page 437] submerged, enfoldedin her layerspulsing waters. … push … the lullaby… push, push up …
what remains on shoreis for us allto bear …the air, fresh of despair,the stale hope:
Let us carryour mothersas theyhave carried us. …
Myriam J. A. Chancy is Hartley Burr Alexander Chair of the Humanities at Scripps College. She is the author of eight books, including Autochthonomies: Transnationalism, Testimony and Transmission in the African Diaspora (2020) and The Loneliness of Angels (2010), winner of a 2011 Guyana Prize. She was an editorial advisory board member for PMLA from 2010 to 2012 and Editor of Meridians from 2002 to 2004, for which she garnered the 2004 Phoenix Award for Editorial Achievement from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals.
Note
Originally published in Meridians vol. 11, no. 1, 2011.
