Clouded Witnesses
i. promised land
The Lord said to Abraham
“Take your family and go to the land I’ll show you”
(it’s not colonialism, I swear)
so we left our recliners to gather dust,
abandoned our parkas for a world without winter,
we crossed an ocean
for God and
minimum wage
to a land of sand
every morning the call to prayer blares from minarets
tactically positioned throughout town
there is no rest for the wicked
they must rise for Allah just like everyone else
children and the disabled gather in the streets to beg
assembled at traffic stops to cast tearful glances into car windows
the children are ‘working’ for their education
having been sent out by imams to fund their koranic schooling
a one-armed phone card salesman puts them to shame
reinforcing Western ideals
single-handedly lifting himself up by his bootstraps
other children drag carts through the streets crying
“deleaudeleaudeleau” – water
sold in plastic bags–
others hold bissap instead
blood red
to be torn open with bare teeth
and sucked from like vampires
the bags are pitched in the open streets,
gathered in piles with other trash
and burnt
black smoke and soot filling the air
houses are walled and gated to keep out strangers and maintain ‘cleanliness’
the old expat lays out his wisdom:
“a night-guard is okay
a night-guard and a dog is good
just the dog is best”
the neighbourhood children throw rocks over the walls at our dog
so we must chain him when we open the gates
lest he charge out in search of vengeance
at Eid goat blood runs in the streets
skinned corpses lean on spits around fires
the feast is shared with friends and family
my father is served a ‘delicacy’ by our night-guard
when asked what it is the man begins drawing in the sand with a stick
and sheepishly says “it’s – you know –
it’s the part that makes it a man”
the Chinese exchange ‘monuments’
(convoluted round points, mostly)
for mining rights to uranium
(it’s not colonialism, I swear)
school starts with violence
at the French school
I am beaten on the playground
and my friends are touched by older boys in the bathrooms
and we are left without words
at the English school
I am beaten again
I can speak this time, but my teacher declares that
“nobody likes a tattletale”
“they say I walk like a woman–” “don’t make it political or I will kick you off the stage”
(the queer graduate’s last words on stage) (the ex-military missionary’s warning)
? where can I find these “apolitical speeches”
(at the missionary boarding school)
My bullies have become my friends, but
has the wrath of my youth dissipated but
or has it simply passed me over?
ii. sand saints
and the Lord said to Abraham,
“I’m sure gonna give you tons of kids
as many as there are stars in the sky
and sands on the beaches”
but Abraham was a very tired man,
pure of heart,
so that much sex would be egregious
and he said, “two’s good, thanks”
but the Lord said, “too bad”
a missionary met a banker on the travel bus and
as they shared stories of their work and
the banker declared and
“I think we should leave other people’s cultures well enough alone”
The missionary replied, “Good point, and
I’ll be sure to keep my cash, and
investments, goods, imports, exports, fiscal policy, and
et cetera, et cetera, and
to myself”
(it’s not colonialism, I swear)
we hit the road for a conference four nations away and
four hours in our radiator is boiling fumes and
so we pull to the side of nowhere, and
pop the hood– and
our water has gone dry but
a hut emerges from the bushes,
strangers fill the reservoir and
we ride on
night falls and
there is a bush taxi driver under the hood and
he has immersed himself in the darkness of the engine and
(you’ve heard of god from the machine, and
well, here’s a total stranger from Backroads, Nowhere) and
slashing leaky hoses only to reaffix them and
his name is a strange maxim in a foreign tongue and
roughly translating to “Health First”
he works his miracle so well
that there is not another stop
and when we finally reach a mechanic there is little to be fixed and
and after several millennia counting
specks in Sheol, learning the same names
a thousand times over
(originality is long dead)
he sighs
and if one more goy starts a singalong about him
like he’s Barney the Dinosaur
demanding a rewrite of the family tree,
Abraham will cry out
? ARE WE THERE YET, LORD
iii. fear and trembling
and for nine months there is nothing but dry wind
and in the ‘winter’ months the temperature falls
to 68 degrees at the chilliest
‘cold’ locals bundle up in ski jackets,
the season also carries in harmattan dust
choking the asthmatics,
who turn to turbans for protection
but then the summer rains come,
we dance in the muddy streets,
our clothes drenched and sticky
but with rain comes life and death –
the river which runs through the capital
on the shore of which lies our school
floods
and hippos wade into the playground
the library is carried out on canoes, books wrinkled
waist high water taints the walls forever
with thick brown streaks
and the red mud bricks of our ministry center,
uncured (“we don’t get much rain”, the architect said)
after a night-long downpour
burst
and a man and his daughter are crushed
beneath the weight of three storeys
but the dust rises before the rainfall
(which may never come), the sky is
burnt orange as it drops to meet us
the world is concealed in a dusty cocoon
and the Lord laughs
for Father Abraham and I
have made the same error
as the seashore envelops us in blinding love
but we have only the beginning of wisdom
and are totally unprepared for its everlasting end
Are we there yet, Lord?