"a dark
veil kabala surrounding by whorls
of worship green water scallops
folding into themselves like soft
jewels the first huge fish
out of creation
w/ribs veins glimpse
of a tail & deep channels in between
where they will be mountains & ridges
& villages & azure indigo sunsets
of lapis lazuli & white salt marking its finely corrugated edges
& stretching out into thousands of tongues. miles
of soft drifting labials. like pellucid love on the water. . . "
Kabala is the capital of Sierra Leone. Brathwaite is describing how the land is awaiting its potential. All the developments that will take place over millennia are hinted at with the first fish to set foot on land. Focusing on the natural riches of Africa, Brathwaite describes the unique beauty of the continent. From jewels to sunsets, the land is bursting with undeveloped potential.
"Bread
Slowly the white dream wrestle(s) to life
hands shaping the salt and the foreign cornfields
the cold flesh kneaded by fingers
is ready for the charcoal for the black wife
of heat the years of green sleeping in the volcano."
Using the analogy of bread, Brathwaite describes the advance of the land. The land is being shaped by the evolution of time until it is ready for the heat of the volcano. Here Brathwaite takes an important step in human development -- bread -- and uses it to relate the development of the land itself.
"noise of the shop. noise of the farmer. market.
on this slab of lord. on this table w/ its oil-skin cloth
on this altar of the bone. this sacrifice
of isaac. . . "
Evolution progresses and civilization is evolving as well. People now have commerce and religion and farming. At the same time, Brathwaite is being metaphorical. The "sacrifice of isaac" is an allusion to Abraham in the Bible sacrificing his only son Isaac when God tell him to do so. At the last second God told Abraham to spare his son and instead accepted a lamb as a sacrifice. In the poem text, this "sacrifice" is one of the land to human progression. It seems that through social development, the land is being offered up as the price of advancement, but actually the land is being spared because through agriculture and scientific study humans are learning to conserve and protect their environment.
". . . your wife
going out on the streets. searching searching
her feet tapping. the lights of the motor-
cars watching watching round-
ing the shape of her girdle. her back naked
rolled into night into night w/out morning
rolled into dead into dead w/out vision
rolled into life into life w/out dream"
Now technology has advanced to include cars and electricity. People have begun to depart from previous commitment to morality, which was most likely motivated by religion. The wife is waiting for her husband to come home because he's been away too long, most likely engaging in an affair with another woman. Sexuality is the mode by which everything is interpreted, just as the woman's form is emphasized in the headlights. As time passes, the population becomes increasingly cynical. People live and die but do not believe in anything more.
"and boer and boerwreck and boertrek and truckloads of metal
helmet and fusil and the hand grenade
and acid rhodes and the diamonds of oppenheimer
the opulence of voortresshers the grass streiders. . .
suddenly like that fire the crows in johannesburg
you were there
torn. in tears. tatters. . . "
Finally, we come to the war. As the Germans seek conquest and global domination, they arrive in Africa. They bring weapons and destruction with them. Then, though not in Africa, the work of Oppenheimer, the nuclear scientist, is culminated in the atomic bomb. Africa isn't hit with the bomb, but is still witness along with the rest of the world to the life-changing annihilation which it causes.
"your heroes burning in your houses
rising from your dust bowls
flaring from the sky
listen now as the news items lengthen
gathering like hawks looking upward like the
leopard plunging into the turmoil like the
constrictor
and that crouch/shot
shout out against that beast and pistol
the police who shot patrice who castrated kimathi"
After the war, the whites come into power in South Africa. They introduce segregation with Apartheid. As they grow up, black children see their heroes die without cause at the hands of the police. Again, Brathwaite uses native African imagery of leopards and boa constrictors to metaphorically represent the violence of the time.
"and we are rowing out to sea where the woman lived with her pipe and her smoke
shack
and her tea in the tea
pot
tankard of hopes
herbs"
In the '60s marijuana becomes popular in Africa. Used by the Rastifari as part of their religious practice for generations, the young start looking to their grandparents for answers. They want a release; they want drugs.
"and the long guns shattered and silent
and we rise
mushroom
cloud
mau mau
Kilimajaro
silvers of eagles
tears
savannas
nzingas of rivers
umklaklabulus of mountains
and the unutterable metal of the
volcano
rising
rising
rising
burning
soon
soon
soon"
Finally, the end is predicted. Is it war that ends the world? Will it be the nuclear bomb that devastates Africa once for all? All the beauty of Africa is recalled, the natural wonders of the earth. Brathwaite concludes with the end of time, as the volcano inevitably consumes the land once more, as hinted at the beginning of the poem. Society is forged in fire and ends in fire.
