Maxine Beneba Clarke

the stroke of midnight, december thirty-first, nineteen ninety-nine, was going to end the world

at the hospital, they brought generators in

even the food service staff were kept till late evening

none of us would get to aaaaah, at the most expensive fireworks on earth, lighting up a new century:

if the power cut out, we planned to spend armageddon pigging out on defrosting sara lee; and handing out the bottled water, down in maternity

we would control the food, we joked, and therefore, everything

in the new century, we, the workers, would be king

just like one day we’ll say

where were you, on december thirty-first, two thousand and nineteen

– and perhaps more importantly –

who were you before the decade turned

don’t look at me like that, you know what i mean: who were you, when thunder was made

from our protesting children’s feet, when 45,

(the then-president of the united states of america) had just been impeached

we’ll say to young ones

unthinkable now, isn’t it that back then, in this city, women’s bodies were sometimes found naked, from the waist down we would gather in the parks, for candlelight vigils

in this very place, the decade before revolution came, nobody led though four prime ministers rose, and fell;

innocent black folk were shot at point-blank range regularly across the world and often incarcerated, for no valid reason at all

don’t avert your eyes from mine:

you should know what this place was:

earth on fire,

from the redwoods of california to australia’s east coast

my god, the furnaces that burned in brazil, they lost a good part of the amazon,

the sea drew back,

and tsunamis lashed out in samoa and sumatra; sulawesi and nagasaki

in the new decade, we will say the world was not always this beautiful way: in some countries, small children starved to death every single day

but that all slowly started to change

and powerful men were brought to trial

for heinous acts of hate

we threw them out, and relegislated

(they’d made the churches

far more powerful than the state)

for a good while there we thought we were doomed,

that it was all just way too late but the decade turned

the decade turned, and suddenly,

we were wide awake

lined along the gun-powdered foreshore faces tilted to the sky

watching revolution break