Atlantic Crossings

Here's a poem by Ishmael Annobil about an ancient story of sailors heading across the sea to distant shores

Abalaa

Where are the men of the first aplodo*

whose ambition for the blue yonder

transpired in this village and

held us captive for six long months

Where did the albatross lead them,

thirsty as they might have been

for the trickle of nature,

forlorn and homesick

even as they harried their oars

over the emblems of hope that

dressed the sides of their canoe,

whose resolute prow held live chickens

for the gods of the sea

and snorted through each wave

like a whaler’s retriever?

We are waiting on these shores for news,

tortured by sailors’ tales of a phantom canoe

roaming the seas with its crew of begging ghosts.

But none mentions the chickens,

so we wait for news

of their new nation.

(2/2/2000 Euston-Watford, Silverlink train)

*Aplodo: a traditional sea quest amongst the Ga fishermen of Ghana, which has for

centuries taken them to foreign lands, including the Americas, where some settle and never come back home. This author believes this to be one of the ways many Africans reached other lands, and became mistaken, purposely, by modern historians for slaves.