I

It started;
Like a little drift of a banana leaf;
From Leopane, 25 km afar
No! it stopped-
It was a minute earlier
From the predestined time,
For the punishment from afar.

II

16:53.
It started this time;
Yes! For sure!
Like a little drift of a banana leaf,
From Leopane, 25 km afar
Boiling slowly it’s ire of revenge, vexation,
Like the flared wax of a candle –
This was its natural method,
Its natural method of summing up
Its cholers of fretfulness
To destroy that city,
For its7.0 magnitude
Could not, could not rip
This black nation of its Skirts
Of treasures of sweat, of charcoal sudor
Which tarnished these skirts
That are its monuments, edifices, its people
Its long secured liberty, equality, fraternity.

III

And so the intruder grumbled
Like the soft mummer of
Thunder;
The little drift manifested into something big!
No! something like a little shake of a Big Mama’s butt;
But what Big Mama offered
Was nothing akin to what the intruder offered.



IV

Black fingers clutching on door knobs
Black eyes searching to clutch
Clutch on air
Prayers climbing up this atmosphere of mystery
Cursing life, purpose, cursing all
Existence, cursing their pride, their
Efforts of setting up this edifices now
Mashing them up like crushers of vengeance
Like crushers of garlic.

V

The waters of destruction slowly entered the city –
Last fingers grasp on leaves;
Fires puffing off edifices,
Street poles down
Black beetles lay on street corners
Beetles are buried as the
Intruder signed its name
On the city’s face;
Great men loss their lives,
presidential palace,
and at last, the City’s Cathedral!

VI
“Port-au-prince is gone!
Port-au-prince is gone!”
Voices from afar hollering for
The world to hear,
“Port-au-prince is gone!”
Other voices from nearby vicinities; Santa Domingo, Kinston
Are heard gossiping, instead of lamenting,
Voicing out that they had warned her,
“Foolish nation, from since 1804,
Fighting for independence, their obeah they
Say; a punishment from the Nation of
The Brave, the Crown Country, The Mother Country.”
“ Had they not fight this vicious battle,” the
Gossipers continued, “ A punishment from afar.”





VII

They denounced, hardly lamenting,
But
Japing at the city who lay half unconscious on the ground,
Till she gave way to her very last breath.