Haiti

Source: “Citadelle Laferrière Aerial View” by SPC Gibran Torres, United States Army – United States Army. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons –

Your beauty celebrated many moons ago.

Not just for your physical most probably, wealth.

They called you “Pearl of the Antilles,” chateaus.

~.~

Saint Dominigue your gem shine the West Indies.

Ships sailed in, ships float out of her harbours.

France became the envy, out came enemies

~.~

Your slaves entrapped, toiling for free, enslaved.

They cried, no one listened, revolted many days.

No caving, that freedom forever they craved.

~.~

The black and mulattoes called her Haiti.

So many claimed power, stability never.

Foreign involved – dictators, calamity.

~.~

Yet you – your memories call Ayiti.

“Land of high mountains,” Caribbean beauty.

One day, you will raise again, valiantly.

~.~

Whenever I read of the negatives of Haiti [which is much more than the positive], I always lament how an island so rich in times past became the poorest nation in the West Hemisphere. I believe that one day Haiti can climb those necessary steps back to stability and economic substance needed for a people’s survival. I chose the Ode form for structure, as away to celebrate Haiti. There are positives on a her shores, one day they will flow more freely to her lands. Strive on Haiti, strive on!