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.
