1865 Bruk-Up

by Opal Palmer Adisa

Opal Palmer Adisa is an award-winning poet, literary critic, prose writer, storyteller, and artist. She is the author of several books of poetry and stories for both adults and children. She is the author of Pina, The Many-Eyed Fruit, Bake-Face and Other Guava Stories, Traveling Women, and Tamarind and Mango Women. Leaf-of-Life is her most recent poetry collection, and her latest novel is It Begins With Tears. Adisa’s Tamarind and Mango Women won the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award. Her poetry, stories, and articles have been anthologized widely in North America, the Caribbean, and Europe. Adisa is a professor of literature and creative writing, and former chair of the Ethnic Studies/Cultural Diversity Program at the California College of the Arts.

thud     thud     thud
the endless dirge
to wind the land
to use              thud
shovel against rock
thud                thud
gravel too marl
to bed seed
too salt
to strengthen roots
thud                thud

paul was minding them business
his mouth twisting how to frame
them demands
when the earth spoke
pick up de bible in yu right hand
and them plan in yu left

he was the studying
the soil and scriptures
but the wind kept talking to him
listen paul the voice said

he wasn’t ready to hear
bogle is you same one
i and i begging
you ear for a moment
the trees began to whistle

never enough food
from way yonder
them marching           walking single file
marching in groups      striding
machetes perched on their shoulders
tip pointed backwards
and is now he asking for guidance
is now he take up
their woes like wasp nest
his same baptist church
they come lean up against
he preacher he leader
mouth full of words

i know why it name
stony gut
no family can feed
from the mawga ribs
of a hillside
the land hard
like dry coconut
that’s what i go tell them

45 miles to spanish town
he trekked
bogle stand like
tall bamboo
his words
like lacatan banana
that melt in the mouth
but dem tun deaf ears
he come back
with a swollen tongue
still same way

he petitioned
400 strong with him
them faces yellow yam
them march to morant bay court house
400 strong      on october 11
crying food     water
school for our children
not even phlegm
the soil can cough up
but soldiers  chase  and beat them
so dem bun it down
right to the ground

now  bogle in the thick of things
and the voice still say
go on man      press on
he minding them business
and his friend
g w gordon
chatting up for them too
so dem hang him

bogle put down the bible
and pick up de struggle in both hands

he wake one october morning
with dry throat
he did know and he didn’t know
not even when the rope caressed
his neck

430 others with him
soldiers slaughtered
their frustrated anger
caught in flames
1000 homes burnt
before them sorrow mek news

oh morant bay         
lawd paul bogle       
wow morant bay      

rock-stone drink blood

thud 
thud
thud