(i.m. Aimé Césaire, Négritudist)

The windward waves are storming:
black.
The basalt of Pelée is black.
The mourners' blown umbrellas: black.
The massing clouds above them: black.
Umbrella bolls of cotton: black.
The acres of vanilla pods:
all black.

The freshly-mounded soil is black.
The grave's great mouth is shaded:
black.
The ink across your elegies:
jet black.
This too is heaven.

*Stephen Derwent Partington, is the Kwani? poetry editor and a member of the Concerned Kenyan Writers Initiative.

**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org