Recipe 


Create space

Nurture memories

Be still

Breathe

Listen

Write it down

Read it back

Repeat

 

We’ve forgotten

The French Revolution

The American Revolution

The Haitian Revolution

The Civil War

The Civil Rights Movement

Black Nationalism and Black Arts

All revolutions are not equal

Every struggle has not been fruitions

Privileges don’t wear permanence

For every victor

History says Toussaint L’Ouverture’s troupes defeated

Napoleon’s Army and won the war

But

Our story says Haiti has been losing the peace  

Paying reparations to the French

Enduring sanctions and

Tariffs from the British and the USA

And coup d'État after coup d'État after coup d'État

Backed by Western powers and Empire

 

Why am I talking about revolution when

Haiti is now the victim of earthquakes

Followed by cholera

Invasion and mismanagement of aide

Because the peoples and the land of

Haiti are being enslaved again   

The crumbling of the infrastructure

Of peoples and the places they live

Are being colonized again

Because it’s the shaking

Rattling and exploiting of body and soul

That’s rocking Haiti again

Because revolution is 360 degrees

Aftershocks shift everything 

With every political act

If I were a country I’d be Haiti

Because our stories are so much the same

We are Drapetomaniacs punished every time

We escape

The “We” us be want and need the same

REPARATIONS for slavery

Colonialism and backlash

Against our every insistence that we are

BEINGS and not commodities

Why am I talking about REPARATIONS when

Haiti is now the victim of earthquakes

Because Haiti remembers

So it shakes

 

Make time

Create space

Nurture memories

Be still

Breathe

Listen

Write it down

Read it back

Repeat