Ahiti

Out of West Africa they came in waves,
Shackled, bound for early graves,
Brought to Hispaniola, slaves.
To Ahiti, Flower Mountain Land,
(in the native Taino tongue)
Lush with forests, flowing fountains,
Whose grace and beauty once was sung
By Queen Anacoana, ruler of this island, green,
Balladeer and poet, queen
Of the Taino, brutally slain
By conquistadors from Spain.
They hung her for resisting the cruel
Ruthless yoke of Spanish rule.
Seems like trouble never eases
Suicides, infectious diseases,
Souls dismayed by the missionaries' Jesus…
The Taino died off under the whips,
Their replacement provided by slavery ships.

By 1700 France and Spain,
Drooling over the sugar cane
Split their spoils into twain.
Split the fertile isle asunder -
Easier to share the plunder.
The putrid smell became a stench,
With Spain off their backs, they got stuck with the French.
Masses of slaves working their asses off,
Haiti now a cash cow to the upper classes.
For generations, Frenchmen of high station,
Sent their sons to run the Haitian,
Coffee, indigo and sugar plantations.
Exporting luxury crops to nations afar,
Leaving the slaves starvation rations.
Worse than peasants under the Czar,
Breaking their backs under Code Noir.

Then came Toussaint, and Dessalines
A rebellion, like one never seen,
Three major armies, uprooted - Napoleon's included.
They ripped out the white of the French tri-color. Tore it away,
leaving the colors we see today.
It hit white slavers like a lightening bolt,
The only successful slave revolt.
First ever independent republic that was black.
All the white powers quite taken aback!
Couldn't quite digest that fact.
Might be running out of places to sack?
It hit Mississippi like a smack in the mouth.
What would happen to their slaves in the south?
Major fears! What would they be thinkin?
US didn't recognize Haiti for another sixty years - until Lincoln.
Meantime their economy was rapidly sinkin
By an embargo and a demand for reparations!
Reparations? To the French? For bringing devastation,
Sucking their sustenance, leaving starvation?
A travesty by any measure.
Freedom won by blood - made to be repaid in treasure.

Thievery has many sources;
French and German, US forces,
Attacking with no need for stealth,
Only concerned with their own health.
Why bother building up a nation
When you can just siphon off its wealth?

And home rule proved to be another disaster.
To hell in a handbasket, only faster.
From foreign devil to cruel local master.
Didn't take long for Dessalines
to take power and turn mean.
He and his henchmen, learned from the French on
How to mess up the people's dream.
He said "Pluck the chicken, just don't make it scream."

Paths to plunder found other routes!
Home grown brutes and other recruits with guns and boots,
Spit out the husks, after sucking out the fruits.
Papa Doc and the Tonton Macoutes
Turned Haiti into a living hell.
They plucked the chicken, made it scream as well.

And what happened when Aristide
Tried to feed the people, stem the greed?
In this age you got to be courageous,
When you try to raise starvation wages…
How was he paid for his good deeds?
Years after the initial euphoria,
Aristide, in tears, trapped in Pretoria.

When trees are cut to clear lands
for plantations and all the mahogany's been shipped to France,
The rest cut down to make charcoal,
It kind of puts you in a hole.
Where are the roots to hold the soil?
To maintain the fertility of the land?
The sea takes the nutrients, leaving just sand.
Land cleared for sugar cane,
With no roots to hold the rain,
Claims more lives from huge mud slides
in the heavy rains from hurricanes.
Foreign investments provides few cures,
And so the predatory state endures.

Charcoal smoke still polluting,
Foreign soldiers still there shooting,
Stolen forests no longer rooting,
And the Western press talks about looting!
Blinding us to cultural and spiritual powers
That thrusts its shoots through darkness and blossoms into flowers.
And don't forget Africa's role in molding the Creole soul.
Yeah, Haitians have paid a heavy cost
But Anacoana's song has not been lost.
In the Haitian heart it still hums.
Look at the art. Listen to the drums.

Ahiti

New Poems

From By Heart

Some Earlier Poems

Audio Recordings