Black tears, we cry them at dawn / We drop them on this Isle of Hope / We shed them in, we shed them in
Black tears of the one with coffee / Twisted into a cup half-full of blood / Twisted into a body dressed in red
Black tears rain like haikus on Haiti / Raising their own threnody of here / Where stretched in shock is an Isle
Black tears, that we cry as we die / In the hall of stately palaces of hope / Where revolution has eaten its own
There comes a time when a nation / Is larger than its history of revolution / When the nation, the entire earth is…. There comes a time that is a crime / A time to stare into the senselessness / Of political vacuums that echo volumes
There comes a time when suns set West / Yet they rose in the West itself somehow / Yes...! they rose in the West as Black Sun.
Now there is nothing here, only ashes / Now there is nothing here, only elegies / Now there is one thing here: threnodies!
Grasses of remembrances bear new dew / Lawns of a palatial garden stately, behold / The flowers bear witness to this spectacle:
In a republic that walks backwards into time / Stands the shocked figure of a dead leader / Marking time like a revolution half-expressed
And in the dying notes of a national anthem / Rises the echoes of liberty made by slaves / Who shed black tears to raise hope as a flag
There may be more quakes upon this island / Quakes yet to come mirroring others before / Quakes both natural and manmade, I tell you
Yet even in the vaults of such familiar horrors / Haiti, you shall swell like the tide at nightfall… / You shall hug the shores of your own identity
Haiti you shall raise the black palanquin of hope / Upon hefty shoulders of a futuristic chronotope / You shall march like a god to the Port of Princes.
And in that moment like this one marked by awe / You shall be an isle no more watered by red rain / You shall be this threnody of black tears of Faith
Dr Makokha teaches Literature and Theatre at Kenyatta University. He is a published poet, too
