Edwidge Danticat is the author of numerous books, including Brother, I’m Dying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was a National Book Award finalist; Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah Book Club selection; Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist; The Dew Breaker, winner of the inaugural Story Prize; and The Farming of Bones, which won an American Book Award for fiction in 1999. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, she has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and elsewhere.

Chapter One

    Present Past Future

    Marc Christophe

What will I tell you, my son?

What will I say to you, my daughter?

You for whom the tropics

Are a marvelous paradise

A blooming garden of islands floating

In the blue box

Of the Caribbean sea

What will I tell you

When you ask me

Father, speak to us of Haiti?

Then my eyes sparkling with pride

I would love to tell you

Of the blue mornings of my country

When the mountains stretch out

Lazily

In the predawn light

The waterfalls flowing

With freshness

The fragrance of molasses-filled coffee

In the courtyards

The fields of sugar cane

Racing

In cloudy waves

Towards the horizon

The heated voices of peasant men

Who caress the earth

With their fertile hands

The supple steps of peasant women

On top of the dew

The morning clamor

In the plains the small valleys

And the lost hamlets

Which cloak the true heart

Of Haiti.

I would also tell you

Of the tin huts

Slumbering beneath the moon

In the milky warmth

Of spirit-filled

Summer nights

And the countryside cemeteries

Where the ancestors rest

In graves ornate

With purple seashells

And the sweet and heady perfumes

Of basilique lemongrass

I would love to tell you

Of the colonial elegance of the villas

Hidden in the bougainvilleas

And the beds of azaleas

And the vast paved trails

Behind dense walls

The verandahs with princely mosaics

Embellished

With large vases of clay

Covered

With sheets of ferns

Pink cretonnes

Verandahs where one catches

A breath of fresh air

During nights

Of staggering heat

By listening to

The sounds of the city

Rising up to the foothills

I would love to recite for you

The great history

Of the peoples of my country

Their daily struggles

For food and drink

Tireless people

Hardworking people

Whose lives are a struggle

With no end

Against misery

Fatigue

Dust

In the open markets

Under the sun's blazing breath

I would want to make you see

The clean unbroken streets

Straight as arrows

Bordered by the green

Of royal palms and date palms in bloom

I would love to make you admire

The shadowed dwellings

The oasis of green

Of my Eden

I would carry you

On my shivering wings

To the top of Croix D'Haiti

And from there

Your gaze would travel over

These mountains

These plains

These valleys

These towns

These schools

These orphanages

These studios

These churches

These factories

These hounforts

These prayer houses

These universities

These art houses

Conceived by our genius

Where hope never dies.

Copyright © 2001 Edwidge Danticat. All rights reserved.