POEM: I AM SAILING ON A RAFT OF MY BONES
by Anoush Ter Taulian
Published: Thursday March 29, 2012
Tribute to the ancestors ceremony in Coney Island. Photo by Tony Akeem
/ Courtesy of Anoush Ter Taulian
New York – Quivering fingers are a sign Quivering fingers are a sign
of life Stretching up through the concrete coffins Pressing on my
breasts Come closer Breathe your caring into me So that I can inhale
the sunrise
It is so hard for us to breathe Mother Earth is also suffercating
under millions of tons of real estate developers rape concrete We
are cracking, exploding, tumbling Releasing into each other becoming
Scattered parts of an infinite universe
Inside my eyelids oceans roar I am sailing on a raft of my bones In
the choppy sea I can see 250,000 Haitian bone rafts Guided by the
luminous skeleton parts Sunk deep in the Atlantic, of the 100 million
Africans killed in the Middle Passage Our bones fuse together, the
yearning, returning Crashing on the shores of the motherland While the
daily unnatural disasters Caused by Conquerors – Genocide, Slavery,
Poverty continue
In an instant your life can change for the worse In an instant your
life can change for the better Ayibobo Ayiti, Hail to the Spirits
Successful slave rebellion, Voodoo Queen, 1st Black Republic Ayibobo
Ayiti shackled to corrupt governments Backed by US imperialism, but
Ayiti you are still fragrant With the spirit of justice and resistance
Ayibobo Ayiti Hail to the Spirits Hail to the Spirits
>From the author: “After the 2010 Haitian earthquake, I thought of a
friend who was under the rubble for three days before she was rescued
during the 1988 Armenian Earthquake in Spitak. In solidarity with
the Haitian earthquake victims, I wrote this poem “I Am Sailing On A
Raft Of My Bones” which I read at many Haitian benefits and on Haitian
radio always mentioning how in 1915 while the US was invading Haiti,
the Ottoman Turks were committing the 1915 Armenian Genocide.
I also said that Armenians had nothing to do with slavery in America
and in fact during the Genocide many Armenian women were forced
to become slave brides of the Turks. When I mentioned that Turkey
denies the Armenian Genocide and doesn’t want to pay reparations,
many of the African-Americans I talked to felt the US denies the
African Holocaust and doesn’t want to pay reparations.
I started doing research on the African Holocaust (Maafa). I went
to the Shomberg Library in Harlem where the librarian said the
Maafa took place during the trans-Atlantic slave trade (1562-1807)
with estimates of 40 to 100 million deaths. When I asked her how
there really could have been 100 million deaths, she said that many
Africans died during capturing or deportation and sometimes whole
ships of slave cargo sank during the Middle Passage. Also she said
the numbers include the slave trade to Central and South America and
over hundreds of years it might even be more.
I also read this poem at The Tribute To Our Ancestors Of The Middle
Passage which annually takes place in Coney Island as a memorial to
all the Africans that died during the slave trade in the Atlantic,
which is the largest graveyard in the world. The Sun Middle Passage
Collective believes there is a physical and spiritual presence in
the Atlantic that we must acknowledge in the African “Bones that
couldn’t stand the systematic rapes and beating, Bones that caved in
when eye witnessing children and loved ones being tossed overboard to
the sharks, and Bones that decided to fight back.” At the memorial
after the cultural presentations everyone goes to the ocean to put
flowers in the water while people drum and dance.
In 1791 the Haitians planted the seeds of the first successful slave
rebellion in the Americas and in 1804 became the first post-colonial
independent black -led nation in the world. But Haitian independence
came at a high price because France demanded 150 million francs. It
took Haiti over 120 years to pay off this debt which greatly
impoverished the country and now many Haitians are demanding France
return this extorted money. The Haitians have had little chance for
self-determination because foreign powers have been supporting corrupt
politicians to gain control over Haiti’s resources.
The US boycotted Haiti and didn’t recognize the Haitian government
from 1804 to 1865. The US invaded Haiti in 1915 because they wanted to
dominate the region under the Monroe Doctrine. The US military stayed
until 1934 after the US had taken over the banking systems , stole
the gold and changed the constitution so foreigners could own property.
“Tectonic Shifts – Haiti Since The Earthquake” edited by Mark Schuller
and Pablo Morales discusses the impact of foreign intervention on
Haiti. Now two years after the earthquake there are still over a
million homeless living in squalid tent camps, while aid organizations
like the Red Cross are not accountable to the aid recipients. Bill
Clinton’s Foundation contracted a company that was being sued for
formaldehyde in trailers it sold FEMA after Hurricane Katrina instead
of using a local firm to create jobs in Haiti.
Grassroots Haitian organization like Ligue Feminine (Feminine League)
and SOFA have organized themselves to do things like distribute food
and help protect women from violence in the camps, but they don’t have
the funding they need. Meanwhile there needs to be a class action
suit against the Red Cross to show where all the money has gone and
there needs to be a system where the disaster victims themselves have
a say in aid distribution.”
From: A. Papazian
http://www.reporter.am/go/article/2012-03-29-poem-i-am-sailing-on-a-raft-of-my-bones-