Image courtesy of Herval. Shared via a Creative Commons license. 

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Fire Builder

I am by nature a conflagration —
I am by nature the gale force wind
that blows these mountains brown and bare —

Some say that I have become a symbol to my people.

I am the salt ponds of Sualouiga;
The if-you-could-only-name-those-shades-of-blue-waters;
The woman who can simultaneously see
what is before and beyond me.

We must unpack
The book of symbols.

Call me ill-tempered;
Call me bad-tempered;

Call me all-for-myself;
Call me all-for-my-people;

Call me the one who is always building a fire —

The names really aren’t that important.

I am the woman in the bright red dress
Looking like a flamboyant tree walking down Front street;

The woman who is always ahead of you —
The woman whose face you cannot see.

Call me Circe; call me Sycorax;
I am the puzzle; the mystery; the riddle;
I can become anything you want me to be.

Call me the mother of the July people;
Call me the July people —
All those hands raised into fists,
Holding that blood-red flower.

Call me mythmaker;
Call me Firebuilder;
Call me One-Tete-Lokay.

—-

 

Jacqueline Bishop was born in Kingston, Jamaica. She currently teaches at New York University, where she earned her M.A. in English & American Literature, and her M.F.A. in fiction writing. She has been awarded a UNESCO/Fulbright fellowship, The Arthur Schomburg Award for Excellence in the Humanities, and five Jamaica Cultural Development Commission awards, among many other honors. Her work explores issues of home, ancestry, family, connectivity and belonging.