Dead Fingers
By Joergen Ostensen
4.1.19
I wrote this poem after visiting Robben Island, the infamous prison off the coast of South Africa where black political prisoners were incarcerated under the apartheid regime. The prison is a museum now. One of the lasting images I will always remember is the sign they had put up there asking for information about people who had disappeared. They were still asking for information about prisoners, because they just do not know. This was a very powerful moment because our guide, a former inmate, told us he did not expect to survive his journey by boat to the island. In that moment I was truly able to catch a glimpse into how horrible the regime was, how little they cared about the lives of those people.
Every wave rises
Slowly reaching the apex
Of its assault on the shore
Approaching the rocky partition between
Infinity and here where
Every wave wells up within
Itself, seething with a noxious desire,
As it bubbles to a breaking point
Somewhere ordained
And froth pours from its shadowed mouth
As it falls, cascading seaward
Shattering its soul
In a desperate attempt to erase
The dark crags jutting
Into the surf like dead
Fingers reaching for the forgotten mainland.
Waves, dead fingers
And if you have any information
Please call
A list of names and dates
Decades of names and dates
And some dates just question marks
A list of unanswered questions
And if you have any information
Please call
A list of dead fingers
And hands and arms
And ears and eyes
And minds gone,
Lost—families, comrades
Memories, songs, smiles
Love between people—all gone,
All lost somewhere
In the waves or buried
Deep now in the decades
Where truth was as scarce
As sweet water
At the apex of a breaking wave.
