ascended slippery stairs hoping by holy intervention her home had been saved. She stared from room to room, swaying like a punched drunk spirit, mouth and eyes wide black holes of disbelief, words gone as wounds appeared. She walked on water, treading over eighty years of floating debris, then could do no more than silently thank her saviour over and over for sparing her life. After the hurricane, after Mass, tales of rampant looting circled among them like hungry dogs; after the turned-inside-out but still well clothed congregation, still silent, had shared signs of peace. No one appeared to conjure and divide loaves and fishes between some people; divided by good and bad luck or circumstance; divided by ability or will to pad and prepare,
In The Air
[ 4 ] concrete seal, pantry stock, insure against calamity. But having enough or not enough saved, surely meant little then, after all none were saved from that almighty hurricane that reined in our poor island and had everyone drowning. After the hurricane, came the crazed lines for food... for any kind of fuel; came the tell-tail spoors of rats and roaches tracking rubbish; dank despair threading desperation through the dark. At night my grandmother floated in and out of light, nightmare-laden, sleep, waiting for the chain rattle of locked door; for the bark signalling predators had come for what little she had left. She prayed for enough strength and grace to give the strangers what they came to take. After the hurricane, she said sometimes it felt like man eat man survival, every woman for herself. Who had time, air, breath, breadth enough, to free dive deep and long enough, to understand then these heads heaped, backs breaking,
[ 5 ] carrying stolen mud-crusted sofas, sinks, spirits, through debris to homes miraculously still standing? To understand then the tragic improvised or organised bacchanal trashing of schools and stores? Who could explain anything then? Understand or explain anything now! When she was able, my grandmother told me about after the hurricane. Months later I flew home and stood stone still in the ruin of her home, alone. I thought fear faith, had been uncovered, illuminated, as I watched a mass of untethered particles air-floating in the beam of my head lamp, from floor all the way above my head to the star spored heavens.
[ 6 ] I thought we had seriously prepared for this hurricane; bought the supplies, bagged the important, boarded-up openings, but as I sit bare foot, sore, soaked, shocked, in rising pool of water, bony back pushing against bulging wooden walls, I realise I have been impressively naive again about the boundaries beyond boxed imagination; the surreal reality which can actually be birthed—a whole nation of unforeseen…revelation. This, this, bulging-wall force, squeezing water through thread-vein cracks in wood, breaking out, breaking in, breaking us—is unimaginable. I shout, hand gesture my husband, let us leave the wall, save ourselves, run for cover down stairs to concrete bathroom. But he has invested so much of his life into all of this; bits of him strewn in and out of our home, it is more than his life is worth to stop trying to save it now. There are endless loud cracks, crashes—I see myself lifted, flung, flying across the room, landing head first into bookshelves; imagine this hysterical poetic ending. I do not know what time is doing but decide to stay here with him and push and push against this wall, until… Years ago, I had abandoned prayers of Catholic parents and searched for my own resonating words, and lately have been trying out mantras for their sound and effect. So now I push and push, chant and chant, over and over. Ajai Alai…Aganjae Alaykhae, Ajai Alai…Aganjae Alaykhae; Invincible Indestructible…Unconquerable Indescribable. The unimaginable beating down in time time time with me… Ajai Alai
