My heart trembles in the shadows
The old mirage rises from the pit of night.
I know the sorcery of the past:
a river carries so far away from its banks,
carries me towards the land of my ancestors.
Listen to those voices: they sing the sadness of love.
On this mountain hear that tom-tom
panting like the breast of a young black girl.
My sould is a reflection in this whispering water
where the fathers of my fathers beat their dark faces.
Its secret movement takes me in to the darkness.
And the white that made me mulatto
is only a bit of foam cast away,
like spittle, on the dark faces of this river.
Jacques Roumain (1907 - 1944) Haiti
Translated by Committee for the Release of Jacques Roumain
Source: Harry Ransom Center
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