TRIBUTE TO BOOKMAN
By Réginal Souffrant
Bookman, you are an undeclared king!
For you, birds in unison keep on singing.
Trees and sea breezes cannot stop dancing.
To honor your legacy, angry ocean waves are rising.
Even the most sepulchral silence is praising
I enjoy watching your star scintillating.
You are a shepherd, an educator,
A warrior, a healer and a leader.
A preacher like you is so hard to find.
Really, you are one of a kind.
You have convinced me that I am not inferior,
That my race should not be a barrier.
Your determination to display your brilliance
Has energized my self-confidence.
Never ever will I be the colonizer’s serf,
Or lie down under his exploiting feet as a negligible turf.
My heart and my soul, you have saved.
Thanks to you, my spirit will never be mentally enslaved.
Bookman, your name sounds like a thunder;
Your eyes spark like a lightning
Which illuminates the path of souls who refuse to surrender
To the terrifying politics of lynching.
The enemy trembles like a leaf;
He is in total disbelief
When he sees your rebellious frame
Perched on the highest hill like a hall of fame.
Your bravery, like a burning flame,
Sets ablaze his dirty and devil inspired aim.
When_ like a lion_ roars your eloquent voice,
From all the mountains resonates a volcanic noise:
A noise that makes rivers overflow,
A noise that sinks the enemy’s morale deeply low.
Your victorious torch smashes
Splendid plantations reduced into ashes,
And the winds of insurrection echo like water splashes.
You have avenged, through your powerful arms,
All slaves sweating in deadly farms.
No one can crush your fury, not even the gendarmes.
No real or imaginary fear could slow down the conspirators.
Your decapitated corpse has recruited much more plotters
Who, in 1804, have turned the settlers’ jubilant events
Into a mourning song with melancholic accents.
I do not celebrate Columbus Day
Because Christopher Columbus was a murderer.
Neither do I celebrate Washington’s birthday
Because George Washington was a slave owner.
But… but…I am proud to celebrate Bookman Day
Because…be-cause Bookman was a freedom fighter.
Some people have dearly tried to kill your memory,
But like a comet, you keep reappearing unexpectedly.
From the time of your historical uprising,
The flowers of freedom have never stopped blossoming.
Bookman, today Haiti is thanking you.
The Americas are grateful to you.
Africa remembers you.
Asia salutes you.
Oceania is learning about you.
Europe respects you
Antarctica is still waiting for you.
The whole world! is celebrating you.
________________________________
August 6, 2011
*Bookman (or Boukman): Led the most successful slave insurrection in Saint Domingue (Haiti today) in August, 1791. In 1994, the United Nations enjoined all its members to organize cultural events in venues intended to honor this uprising as the “International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Trade” also known as “the Slave Route”.
