“NOON” by Marie-Célie Agnant, translated by Danielle Legros Georges

 

NOON

 

Noon in the unnamed cities

without clocks and

without hours

all the clocks read NOON

 

Noon reeking of venom

and mortal arsenic

 

Noon an enraged sun sets fire to a pond

simmering with the carcasses

of rats and stoned dogs

another unnamed city

risen from yesterday’s night

looking like the others like a sister

heating her cardboard flanks

her faded and damp flanks

on the piles of excrement and alluvium

 

In these houses with leprous flanks

these unnamed houses in unnamed cities

it is always Noon

the hour in which pain sits at ground level

at times charges like a beast

pain of ghettos hungry at full noon

pain forged in constant contempt

rancor become a beast with six million heads

 

All the clocks of all the unnamed cities

have written Noon pain of the child

dead for not wanting to wait any more

of the old man dead for having waited too long

the child and the old man dead

like the rat and the dog

the rat and the dog stoned

the old man and child murdered

by those denying them rice and peas

at the rickety tables of the cities without names

 

NOON the hour of Maria and Rosie

who bury the dead child

the dead child in arms

with no flowers no wreaths

Maria with no past no age

Maria and Rosie without names grown

without knowing why they exist

in the alleys without names

in the cities without names

 

Noon they emerge

indistinguishable daughter mother

in their eyes

the long paths of sorrow

like years of anguish

Noon fog

in the indecency of a sun

that seeks its answers

in the piles of excrement and alluvium

they emerge and the pain

doesn’t stop digging in them

the pain of all the dead children and

all the dead old ones

cries of the droves fighting with life

fallow pain

pain like a fist a torch a knife

conch shell to strike at the center

of all the centuries of pain

 

NOON forever

on the clocks of the nameless cities

they have chosen to spit

on the outstretched hands

we are choosing NOON

knowing already for so long

this fresh and impeccable pain

from dawn to dusk

and all the nights

every night

until dawn and still more cries

of pain and of Noon

mixing

pain of bread

denied to our rough hands

the sweetness

the flavor on our bitter tongues

 

All the clocks

of the wall-less houses

of the unnamed cities NOON

where every day life surprises you

in this pain that no longer surprises you

suffering accumulated

rising from the entrails of the earth

from this piece of earth

love and gouged for so many centuries

because they have chosen to be forever

filibusterers pirates flatterers

acrobats starvers pyromaniacs

we, we also choose

 

Noon hour of choices without rice without peas

Noon beyond the walls of our unnamed cities

Noon worried like our guts

Noon shakes like our arms

Noon hurtles into our veins

Noon firebrand

Noon of powder

Noon of blood

Noon storm

Noon screams with Maria and Rosie

the child and old man dead

the market burning in the wake of pyromaniacs

All the burned clocks have proclaimed NOON

 

Translated by Danielle Legros Georges from original French poem “Midi” in Balafres, Les Éditions du CIDIHCA (Montréal, Québec), 1994.

 

To learn more about Haitian-Quebecois poet Marie-Célie Agnant see the following report from her recent residency at Elon University 

 

 

Danielle Legros Georges is a poet, educator, and translator. She is a professor of creative of writing, and the director of Lesley University’s MFA Program in Creative Writing.  Appointed Boston’s second Poet Laureate in 2015, her work has included collaborations with literary and visual artists, museums and galleries.  Her honors include fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Boston Foundation, the Black Metropolis Research Consortium, and commissions from the Trustees of Reservations and the Boston Public Library. She is the author of two books of poems, The Dear Remote Nearness of You and Maroon; the chapbook Letters from Congo; and is the editor of City of Notions: An Anthology of Contemporary Boston Poems.

 

Cover image by Irene De Matteis.