For Aimé Césaire, Édouard Glissant
                            and Saint-John Perse, clairvoyants visited
                            by the impenetrable: they will have sorted
                            through messages for us, shedding light 
                            on some—culling what’s key.
                            For Jean Toomer, without a doubt.
                            For Éva, of course. 

     On such nights
bitter nights when the moon turns away from the world
when the movement of trees is gloomy and even gloomier their speech
if you dared slow the pace
you’d hear the sugarcane grow

     On such a night
we were coming back from a dance (Ève, Victor, and also Simon)
To each their own path to each their own illusion
disenamored with our ways Zora had chosen a different path
The three of us eying the moon and hands bracing lower backs
silently tread on the line of land
parting the long-haired field of cane

     Such a night
isn’t it out of this world  . . . (began one of us a tad perturbed)
But now a new wind was disturbing the cane
a madness jangled among the sparse leaves
and the moon’s brief beauty was slowly fading
Ève was the first to suddenly see
green snake venomous stalk bagasse baguette
(a harvest . . . what a stealthy harvest . . . )
a furtive cane barely a cubit long
following us in fits and starts . . .

     we picked up the pace now running
dress beating on rolling hips
palms sweaty with fear
terror reaping at the hollow of thighs
(not at the loins where love usually grinds)
we wrongly believe we’ve covered leagues
                                                    we fall into ravines
the glabrous moon above our heads and its back so gibbous
oh the cane the cane was leaping forward!

     Falling to his knees Victor surprised us by crossing himself
whispering a poem we immediately knew was a prayer
planted (as planters do) his fingers into the belly of the earth
got away with a burn and crept
toward the ghost machete that may have been left to rust on the embankment
oof! chop and chop fecund fright
seven blowguns bearing down!

     Spells of the old coast greetings on your visit!
Simon pushed on, his possessed face a mask impossible to recognize
He began to dance among the spins and flips of the accursed cane
So much does he kick the dust that at last enraptured
he fumes cries and prophesizes Green snake of adversity!
poisonous pipe! reassembled stick!
so many leagues crossed and here we are again
fettered and transfixed in cane and doubt
Mind you a viper is just a bunch of scales
Moon of May come open our way
But the disloyal one was hawking her gold in the shadows
and goodness! did not care about us

     Ève as usual welcomes the bizarre without bias
postpones winnowing sorcery for tomorrow
so that the grain finally frees itself from the chaff
For me she says life
is to be lived with confidence
soon matins will ring!
In single file we tumble downhill toward the village
Looking back (being the last in line) Ève would have discerned
seven snakes standing guard at the edge of the transgressed world
sugarcane glowing red from an ember of the past
its stalks the spikes of an ancient mutiny
fully helmeted in leaves and bedecked in plumes
that breaks away from the ground in a clamor of chains!

     About this matter we swore not to tell a living soul
(in the village tongues wag quite a bit
and Zora already so stingy with her hellos)
before hastily saying goodbye
with three dodged kisses

     It’s on such a night
night without moon or regrets that Ève
knowing me to be silent as the grave
took it upon herself to tell me everything