Built On Sand (Poetry)
29th January 2012
For the Chagossian people*
I see their island — there — mapped small
among the blue — and of no signifcance
to anyone until some eagle eye spotted it —
decided on ownership.
The predator flew down and stole their beaches —
those long silver stretches of clean sand —
thieved the palm-strung shadiness of days —
darkened the clear horizon.
Without pity the wings descended — no justice
in the nature of the bird that came
to kill — to dispossess and wipe away
their simple traces.
The dogs were first — domestic symbols of a settled life —
and easy pickings for a raptor armed
against the innocent. Defenceless in their canine trust
their pets went willingly to slaughter.
Then the islanders — ripped from their roots like weeds —
their homeland swept free of its quiet history with little fuss —
the tide forced to take what was left —
human flotsam drifting...
And thus the eagle made his ugly nest and preened
bloody feathers — the sand he built on stained
by what the elements have so-far failed to bleach away...
Meanwhile, the Sea-God broods and bides his time.
* Island of Shame by David Vine — an account of how the United States colluded with Britain in order to forcibly expel Diego Garcia's indigenous people — the Chagossians — and deport them to slums in Mauritius and the Seychelles so that their island could be used as a strategic US military base.
I see their island — there — mapped small
among the blue — and of no signifcance
to anyone until some eagle eye spotted it —
decided on ownership.
The predator flew down and stole their beaches —
those long silver stretches of clean sand —
thieved the palm-strung shadiness of days —
darkened the clear horizon.
Without pity the wings descended — no justice
in the nature of the bird that came
to kill — to dispossess and wipe away
their simple traces.
The dogs were first — domestic symbols of a settled life —
and easy pickings for a raptor armed
against the innocent. Defenceless in their canine trust
their pets went willingly to slaughter.
Then the islanders — ripped from their roots like weeds —
their homeland swept free of its quiet history with little fuss —
the tide forced to take what was left —
human flotsam drifting...
And thus the eagle made his ugly nest and preened
bloody feathers — the sand he built on stained
by what the elements have so-far failed to bleach away...
Meanwhile, the Sea-God broods and bides his time.
* Island of Shame by David Vine — an account of how the United States colluded with Britain in order to forcibly expel Diego Garcia's indigenous people — the Chagossians — and deport them to slums in Mauritius and the Seychelles so that their island could be used as a strategic US military base.