We Are Nation

Tue Feb 04, 2013

by Marlon Roudette

From an adopted corner of London I think of home.

And slowly hum the national anthem

As my forgotten island writhes beneath the waters

Of her nature’s latest tantrum.{{more}}

The news that filtered through to me that day,

Was of the roof tops of rum shops

That had finally come to rest

In the estuary where we used to catch our tri tri fish.

So I held my breath……..

As if it were I being swept beneath the barely standing bridges.

A coconut husk of a man whisked away

Among the palms and flotsam,

Turning over and over like a-half-a-slippers.

They said the roads became rivers,

And the rivers became aggression.

Throbbing veins of topsoil,

An Exodus of life and all possession.

And as the death toll rose to ten there was still nothing on the BBC,

But a cluster of scientists got themselves stuck in some Antarctic ice,

No room in the headlines for we.

Remotely,

Awaiting stories of survival,

Told by distant voices from the crisis.

From an adopted corner of London I think of home,

and slowly hum….