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omeros - derek walcott lyrics

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“this is how, one sunrise, we cut down them canoes.”
philoctete smiles for the tourists, who try taking
his soul with their cameras. “once wind bring the news

to the laurier*cannelles, their leaves start shaking
the minute the axe of sunlight hit the cedars
they could see the axes in our own eyes

wind lift the ferns. they sound like the sea that feed us
fisherman all our life, and the ferns noddеd ‘yes
the trees have to diе.’ so, fists jam into our jacket

cause the heights was cold and our breath making feathers
like the mist, we pass the rum. when it came back, it
give us the spirit to turn into murderers

i lift up the axe and pray for strength in my hands
to wound the first cedar. dew was filling my eyes
but i fire one more white rum. the we advance.”

for some extra silver, under a sea*almond
he shows them a scar made by a rusted anchor
rolling one trouser*leg up with the rising moan

of a conch. it has puckered like the corolla
of a sea*urchin. he does not explain its cure
“it have some things” – he smiles – “worth more than a dollar.”
he has left it to a garrulous waterfall
to pour out his secret down la sorcière, since
the tall laurels fell, for the ground*dove’s mating call

to pass on its note to the blue, tacit mountains
whose talkative brooks, carrying it to the sea
turn into idle pools where the clear minnows shoot

and an egret stalks the reeds with one rusted cry
as it stabs and stabs the mud with one lifting foot
then silence is sawn in half by a dragonfly

as eels sign their names along the clear bottom*sand
when the sunrise brightens the river’s memory
and waves of huge ferns are nodding to the sea’s sound

although smoke forgets the earth from which it ascends
and nettles guard the holes where the laurels were k!lled
an iguana hears the axes, clouding each lens

over its lost name, when the hunched island was called
“iounalao,” “where the iguana is found.”
but, taking its own time, the iguana will scale

the rigging of vines in a year, its dewlap fanned
its elbows akimbo, its deliberate tail
moving with the island. the split pods of its eyes
ripened in a pause that lasted for centuries
that rose with the aruacs’ smoke till a new race
unknown to the lizard stood measuring the trees

these were their pillars that fell, leaving a blue sp*ce
for a single god where the old gods stood before
the first god was a gommier. the generator

began with a whine, and a shark, with sidewise jaw
sent the chips flying like mackerel over water
into trembling weeds. now they cut off the saw

still hot and shaking, to examine the wound it
had made. they scr*ped off its gangrenous moss, then ripped
the wound clear of the net of vines that still bound it

to this earth, and nodded. the generator whipped
back to its work, and the chips flew much faster as
the shark’s t**th gnawed evenly. they covered their eyes

from the splintering nest. now, over the pastures
of bananas, the island lifted its h*rns. sunrise
trickled down its valleys, blood splashed on the cedars

and the grove flooded with the light of sacrifice
a gommier was cracking. its leaves an enormous
tarpaulin with the ridgepole gone. the creaking sound
made the fishermen leap back as the angling mast
leant slowly towards the troughs of ferns; then the ground
shuddered under the feet in waves, then the waves passed

achille looked up at the hole the laurel had left
he saw the hole silently healing with the foam
of a cloud like a breaker. then he saw the swift

crossing the cloud*surf, a small thing, far from its home
confused by the waves of blue hills. a th*rn vine gripped
his heel. he tugged it free. around him, other ships

were shaping from the saw. with his cutlass he made
a swift sign of the cross, his thumb touching his lips
while the height rang with axes. he swayed back the blade

and hacked the limbs from the dead god, knot after knot
wrenching the severed veins from the trunk as he prayed:
“tree! you can be a canoe! or else you cannot!”

the bearded elders endured the decimation
of their tribe without uttering a syllable
of that language they had uttered as one nation

the speech taught their saplings: from the towering babble
of the cedar to green vowels of bois*campeche
the bois*flot held it tongue with the laurier*cannelle

the red*skinned logwood endured the th*rns in its flesh
while the aruacs’ patois crackled in the smell
of a resinous bonfire that turned the leaves brown

with curling tongues, then ash, and their language was lost
like barbarians striding columns they have brought down
the fishermen shouted. the gods were down at last

like pygmies they hacked the trunks of wrinkled giants
for paddles and oars. they were working with the same
concentration as an army of fire*ants

but vexed by the smoke for defaming their forest
blow*darts of mosquitoes kept needling achille’s trunk
he frotted white rum on both forearms that, at least

those that he flattened to asterisks would die drunk
they went for his eyes. they circled them with attacks
that made him weep blindly. then the host retreated

to high bamboo like the archers of aruacs
running from the muskets of cracking logs, routed
by the fire’s banner and the remorseless axe

hacking the branches. the men bound the big logs first
with new hemp and, like ants, trundled them to a cliff
to plunge through tall nettles. the logs gathered that thirst

for the sea which their own vined bodies were born with
now the trunks in eagerness to become canoes
ploughed into breakers of bushes, making raw holes

of boulders, feeling not death inside them, but use
to roof the sea, to be hulls. then, on the beach, coals
were set in their hollows that were chipped with an adze

a flat*bed truck had carried their rope*bound bodies
the charcoals, smouldering, cored the dugouts for days
till heat widened the wood enough for ribbed gunwales

under his tapping chisel achille felt their hollows
exhaling to touch the sea, lunging toward the haze
of bird*printed islets, the beaks of their parted bows

then everything fit. the pirogues crouched on the sand
like hounds with sprigs in their t**th. the priest
sprinkled them with a bell, then he made the swift’s sign

when he smiled at achille’s canoe, in god we troust
achille said: “leave it! is god’ spelling and mine.”
after mass one sunrise the canoes entered the troughs

of the surpliced shallows, and their nodding prows
agreed with the waves to forget their lives as trees;
one would serve hector and another, achilles

achille peed in the dark, then bolted the half*door shut
it was rusted from sea*blast. he hoisted the fishpot
with the crab of one hand; in the hole under the hut

he hid the cinder*block step. as he neared the depot
the dawn breeze salted him coming up the grey street
past sleep*tight houses, under the sodium bars

of street*lamps, to the dry asphalt scr*ped by his feet;
he counted the small blue sparks of separate stars
banana fronds nodded to the undulating

anger of roosters, their cries screeching like red chalk
drawing hills on a board. like his teacher, waiting
the surf kept chafing at his deliberate walk

by the time they met at the wall of the concrete shed
the morning star had stepped back, hating the odour
of nets and fish*guts; the light was hard overhead

and there was a horizon. he put the net by the door
of the depot, then washed his hands in it basin
the surf did not raise its voice, even the ribbed hounds

around the canoes were quiet; a flask of l’absinthe
was passed by the fishermen, who made smacking sounds
and shook at the bitter bark from which it was brewed

this was the light that achille was happiest in
when, before their hands gripped the gunwales, they stood
for the sea*width to enter them, feeling their day begin

- derek walcott lyrics

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