Yvette Christiansë

. . . a native . . . a glorious example of the converting grace of
God. To hear the word of Life this native would travel over
every part of the island . . . fearing she might lose a single
gospel sermon. She was a woman of no ordinary mind.

Rev. Edwin F. Hatfield, St. Helena and the Cape of Good Hope: Incidents in the Missionary Life of the Rev. James McGregor Bertram of St. Helena, 1852
Shoes on my feet, I am climbing,
once again the girl born on an island,
climbing like a prayer
singing, Lordlord-lordlordlord

I am a simple woman given to simple speech
and there is no one plainer tho I burn
bright - a newborn star - when I am
singing, Lordlord-lordlordlord
as the sun hits the backs of my eyes
where letters burn black.

In the wind - the names of cities:
Paris, London, haunting our young.
Burn the ships! Put up the jetties! Fold them
like linens for which there is no more use
and the ocean will wash, wash,
wash away those punishing dreams
and where there is noise there will be silence.

Sun in my eyes, shoes on my feet,
girls born on this island
climb mountains of prayer
singing, Lordlord-lordlordlord
for they know they are at anchor.
...

My lips bear witness. Distemper!
Those who chain Sunday
from the doors of their week,
how flaccid their Amens,
how thin their charity.

Take this, my body.
I make my bed -
earnest as salt -
in your promises -
all vanities will be laid low,
even to the ocean's floor.

And waves will be
wreaths of white,
our bridal skirt,
and we will glory-glory!
in the name of the sword
that will cut them,
in pieces, in pieces
like rude weeds
in a good man's
vin-n-n-n-nnn-ne-yard.
...

And now, not night, not day.
Something ignited just here,
under the eyelids, stays chilled.
Chill in the marrow of the chest,
legs, arms, the forehead.
And the heart - bird - at rest . . .
a man, not man, not beast,
gesturing above
all that is earth and clumsy
above even a steeple
a shadow, visiting the surface
like a moth, a name you would find
in the good book a man
not man, not beast like
a creature with dusty wings,
a moth of a man
a bat of a man
who can never hear this world
or smell it circling him,
or touch it as it reaches
through the air trembling
to touch to trace
such contours the terrible
shadow of his path pointing
without hand speaking without tongue.
You remembered me, oh Lord,
and sent me an angel whose face
stings me, whose sad heart
hangs its shadow, like the scroll
of a terrible book, upon the branches
of my belief.
...

Leaf, burning
not dying.
Was this how Moses found
God
burning out a space
at day's end?
Trees, by the trunks and leaves,
alight
as if amber, as if glass
pulled
from the glassblower's furnace
- the quick emergency
of bird calls.
And why would birds not
cry out,
why would birds,
the turquoise-backed beetles,
spiders curled in the rusty hinges
of trees,
not know that all things are
at an end
when the splendid face,
burning itself
into the heart of the world,
is the face
that, disappearing,
makes a bird,
a person, cry
I am here?
...

So. There is to be punishment -
Your silence in my knuckles,
under each shoulder blade.

And into the shafts of each bone,
you send cold that bites,
that has no manners -
here, in the grey halo
of the sea's edge -
and call it age.

Well! Well! The sky snags
mountains and falls,
like so many plumes
lost by birds.

I will take this. Deliver.
Take the skin from my face
and know it. I face the salt.
Silence is the whip.

And those bones of young men,
laid deep in acres of hell and grief
in that far-off other world, or there
where the ocean pinches
a continent off, roughly,
like a bud that must be nipped
if the plant is to grow, are as nothing
in the progress of your wrath.

Yes, fling an ocean at me.
I say each wave is perfect
and I am safe in the hammock
of my devotion. It is flawless,
my praise is flawless, my weeping
and the grinding of my old knees,
these things are flawless adorations
and I am, always, your eager bride.
...

Now. How you gonna make sense
when these people need ya?
grumble, grumbling
these not so nice words
don't know no manners
make me knees creak
an me weight spills
over the top of me
panties, hangs an
presses down on
me nipples
Lead kindly light
fast falls the rock
rock of ages in tha
bosom of Abraham
tha devil suckin
on me nipples
hoo-hoo-hoooo
so much ticklin
an me weight spills
lak tha rain
on a black man's
grave but me
nipples get suck
suck suck
And I look unto the hills
from whence cometh
my God, my God, why
in the valley of the shadow of
Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Lift up
your heart and sing
a-blaa, blaa, blaa
lak a sheepie sheep-sheep
with a fat little rump
tha devil suck-suck
and me fat bottom get bump
Lord! When light comes
to this side of the island
let me be here, among the saints
again, and the morning
will rest upon my hands
and there will be nothing
like the sweetness of my voice
for I will have passed through
all temptation, blessed, blessed
Amen-nyen-nyen-nyen-nyen.
...