The Return by Dany Laferriere

Author:Dany Laferriere
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Poetry/Fiction
ISBN: 9781553658092
Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre
Published: 2011-08-26T04:00:00+00:00

A Little Cemetery Decorated Like a

Naïve Painting near Soissons-la-Montagne

Already we’re at the stop, at Fermathe,

where they sell grilled pork

and fried sweet potatoes.

A truck full of people eating.

The anticipation in the air

before the long descent

into the deep South.

It takes as much time

to travel to another country

as it does to go from one city

to another in this country

over the broken roads

and along the edge of dizzying cliffs.

We run a gauntlet of screaming vendors

who jam their fruit baskets in our face.

Laughter rises above the racket.

A man’s impertinent remark.

The sudden gaiety of the women.

The driver slows down

and all the men lean toward

the singing river far below

where bare-breasted women

are washing the white sheets

of the rich ladies of Pétionville.

A colonial scent.

Where is that young girl going, seething with rage

through a field of yellow flowers

that lie flat as she passes by?

The ability of a girl that young

to produce such anger just might be

the palpable sign that this country still has

some guts.

A woman, under a mango tree,

offers us a coffee.

The river isn’t far.

The air is so gentle

it hardly brushes my skin.

The music of the wind in the leaves.

Life is weightless.

A little cat

looking for its mother

finds a dog

of the tolerant sort.

Now both are sleeping

among the flowers.

We get back on the road and find ourselves behind

a long row of cars

full of men wearing ties

running with sweat

and women in black.

The cortege stops

at a modest cemetery decorated

by the local peasants.

Where did they get the idea

to paint death in colors

so brilliant and with motifs so naïve

they make children laugh?

For the naïve painter

death is as ordinary as the sunrise.

A visit to the painter Tiga

who lives close by the cemetery

that so impressed Malraux.

Thin as a reed.

Head like an insect.

Bristling with intelligence.

He sits down, gets up, goes to the window and returns

with an idea so natural

it seems simple.

And what’s rare for a mind so inventive:

other people seem to matter to him.

The peasant painters have come together

under the banner Saint-Soleil.

Daily life in this village where people spend

most of their time dreaming and painting

revolves around the solitary star

that so intimidates Zaka, the peasant god.

My life has been adrift since that late-night call

announcing the death of a man

whose absence shaped me.

I let myself go knowing

that this wandering is not in vain.

When we don’t know the destination

all roads are right.

The Jeep stops

near the Pétionville market,

the very place

where we met this morning.

At length we embrace,

without saying goodbye,

feeling we won’t be seeing each other

again soon.

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