CHRISTMAS IN YAMMOUSSOUKRO, 1991
—from photographs by Jan Bogaerts
—for Jan
—from photographs by Jan Bogaerts
—for Jan
Imagine the basilica of St. Peter
rising from the African jungle
devouring the light of the Ivory Coast
in the village of Yammoussoukro:
this monument, a president's desire
cast in European stone.
Insignificant as an apostrophe against
bright marble pillasters
a tall woman crosses the piazza
burning into the retina—
not like the temporary flash
from looking too long at the sun,
but with the dark endurance of
counter-suns.
A black child on a white boulder
lays down his small bundle of rags
to observe the camera lens.
Christmas on the Ivory Coast:
the infant who will never sit at the
right hand
of Santa Claus, nor learn of the
savior's birth in a manger—
The Wasting Disease, an articulate hunger.
Searching for Mecca,
the men of Yammoussoukro
turn their backs on the sun.
It is said: When two elephants
fight, the grass loses.
There are no more elephants on the
Ivory Coast,
only obscure fetishes of the
crocodile—
Africa is a country of families:
here, where the president is God,
a basilica inexorably rises from the
jungle;
the massive arms of the portico—
comprehensible as the moon—
embrace only the air.
9/92
Liessel, The Netherlands
