A Lament for Rabearivelo

Antananarivo,
I see your people everywhere I look,
beating their mournful heads
against the pitiless rocks of their grief.
And I hear the bleeding verses
of Jean Joseph Rabearivelo,
with the scars in his soul
which no death can heal.
Only their miseries waft in the air.
There is no laughter,
only the dreary drone of distress in Madagascar.

The dark faces,
sketched with sighs and grimaces.
How could a poet have lost his mind,
you ask into the void.

I weep for Rabearivelo.
Ah, the Joseph in you could not save your dreams,
as they became the nightmares
that chained you to the dark.
The dreams dashed to death,
one by one before your very eyes.
The children you bore and buried
with your very hands.
The future dismal and bleak,
the years of frustrations.
Left lonely and loveless in your poverty,
the thoughts that tortured you in your sleep.

I hear the mountains of Iarivo,
bemoaning your unsung greatness.
The burdened bulls lowing their dirges as they lie
by the banks of the cascading rivers.
The flood of furious waters
hauling themselves over the rocks as if to their death.
Ah, Rabearivelo, entranced in your dementia.
I relive your nights of the deliriums.
And the feverish nightmares
that forced you to take the final plunge.
Mindless of the boulders below the abysmal depths.

I lay this wreath for you Jean,
as I search for your lost pen
to give this poem a name.
Ah, the tragedy of a poet,
these drums that still lament.