"Early Pompeian" by Troy's Work Table.
Sidewalk chalk wash, sidewalk chalk, chalk pastels, and charcoal pencil on 12" x 12" concrete board.
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"that portrait / with its plum-parted lips, / the skin of pomegranate, / the forehead's blank, unborn bewilderment."
and
"On the black wings of your screams I watched vultures rise"
and
"the sea / is black and salt as the mind of a woman after labour."
—from "Early Pompeian" by Derek Walcott, as found in The Fortunate Traveller and Selected Poems
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As I am reading this poem, I learn that Derek Walcott died yesterday at the age of 87. He lived a long life. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992.
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Many of Walcott's poems are about his native Saint Lucia, but he also frequently incorporated biblical imagery and the myths and cultures of the ancient world. In "Early Pompeian," he conflates a stillbirth and imagery from the culture of Pompeii, in addition to its destruction by the volcano Vesuvius.
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There is power in the labor of a birth and power in the eruption of the volcano. There is an echo of those buried by the eruption in the curled form of the stillborn infant.
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Death, birth, still birth, premature birth, suffering, existential despair. All of it couched in beautiful language—rich, vibrant, lively language.
How did I end up here again? Oh, yes, by choice. So here I am in the dust, the ash, the flesh, the mess.
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Rest in peace, Mr. Walcott. Thank you for the poetry.
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