Dlishu

A Prayer for Tivoli

(Based on the civil revolution that unfolded when I was in Jamaica in Spring of 2010.  Includes lines from an African American spiritual, written in Italics. Dedicated to those who held their breaths…)

Our mother who art stuck behind the barricade
Hallowed be thy name
Our mother who art stuck behind the barricade
May we always remember your name
May we remember the times when you worked, sometimes all night
Leaving us to fend for ourselves
And the days when we couldn’t get to you, and left you to fend for yours
Daily you gave us hard-dough bread and porridge
Today we prepare curry goat and mannish water in the presence
Of dearly-beloved, 
Gathered here for your name’s sake.
Our mother was stuck behind the barricade 8 days before the rains came
1 day before the police came
2 days before the evacuation buses came
3 days before the soldiers came
4 days before the American plane came
5 days before the hail of bullets came, before the teargas-filled hand grenades came, before the artillery came, before death and destruction came and went
Our mother who got stuck behind the barricade seven days before her medications came didn’t get killed by a gunshot, but will never rise again

our father who art in farm work who watched on the news as civil revolution sparked and caught fire and ran red and hot in Kingston
our father who art in farm work and can’t get back here to his children, or our mother, caught behind the barricade
our father who art in a foreign farm work program don’t have money to send for a funeral; can’t leave to come home; is just as stuck behind a farmwork visa, and will be stuck there for three more months.
Our state of emergency will last for thirty days; our cup runneth over

our government whom we all know to be corrupt
couldn’t afford for war to erupt
without them being there to cover the real evidence up
for their names’ sakes
And so they hailed with bullets anyone not quick enough to take cover
Washed themselves clean of their stain of guilt when they sprayed the guy coming out of the shower
“Shoot all gunman, ask questions later.”
Unquestionable order from brigadier and police commissioner
No regard for innocent civilians who get caught in the crossfire
26 dead and only four guns found
73 dead and only 34 guns found.
Question: How many Tivoli badman does it take to pull a trigger?
no answer

our politicians who art from foreign
who live in foreign
who hold dual foreign citizenships
who rarely come to Jamdung when parliament isn’t sitting
who sit upon a hill and never come down to walk through the valleys
and see how low their constituents are slipping.
our politicians sit upon a high horse
that has just been brought to its knees by an American media force. 
we pray for those sinners now.
We pray for those sinners now and until the hour of our deaths

Blessed are our children who art writing their exams, our finest future,
don’t forget to duck, don’t forget to take cover
between questions three a and four b when gunshots start to fire.
Hail exam invigilator-turn-first-aid-worker,
because when glass bruk and children get splatter,
is not just window, but future dreams that get shatter

blessed are our children who couldn’t go to school,
not for today, not for next week,
not even fi write dem CXC.
What was it that you wanted to grow up to be? a doctor, a lawyer?
Not this year, g.
blessed are our children who couldn’t go to school,
not through any fault of their own,
simply because they couldn’t take the risk to leave them home
and we couldn’t take the risk to let them leave because
one day 700 women and children dressed in white marched down the street, and only the father knows that though we went, we knew we could not go,
and when we were done with the rally and the picket lines, and showing your phone to cover up the lies,
700 women and children dressed in white marched back into Tivoli,
and the barricades never came down.
And the barricades never came down.

Our nation land of wood and water.
Tropical paradise,  but only if you look just out of the corner of your eyes. Because around the next corner, there’s a very thin veil over the lies
Kingston a run hot, but everything is cool in MoBay
Kingston a run hot, but everything is cool in a cottage in Negril
Kingston a run hot, but only the locals need to know,
only the locals need to stay, only the locals can’t go
only the locals need to feel the tension in a
state of emergency overlaying a state of constant chronic poverty,
state of emergency overlaying a state of incessant insecurity,
state of emergency overlaying a terrifying state of “mi no know weh a go happ’n or how mi a go feed mi pickney*”
And the barricades never came down

Thank you for the rains that came and put the fires out
Thank you for the rains that came and washed the blood off the side of my
house, off the streets, out of the gully
Thank you for the rains that came and cooled bad-man tempers down
Thank you for the rains that came and made soldier-man start take cover
Thank you for the rains that came because before the rains came I was getting showered under bullets
Thank you for the rains because before the rains the soldiers came into my house
Thank you for the rain that washed the air clean again, that took the smell of burning rubber out of my nose, that set the world back to rights again, that made it okay to start burying my friends.

May his peace be with you till we meet again
May his peace be with you till we meet again
Till we reach that distant shore
And we’ll shed a tear no more
May he give to strength to endure
Till we meet again
Till we meet again

And the barricades still haven’t come down.