Dead Fingers

By Joergen Ostensen

4.1.19

I wrote this poem after visiting Robben Island, the infamous prison off the coast of South Africa where black political prisoners were incarcerated under the apartheid regime. The prison is a museum now. One of the lasting images I will always remember is the sign they had put up there asking for information about people who had disappeared. They were still asking for information about prisoners, because they just do not know. This was a very powerful moment because our guide, a former inmate, told us he did not expect to survive his journey by boat to the island. In that moment I was truly able to catch a glimpse into how horrible the regime was, how little they cared about the lives of those people.

Every wave rises

Slowly reaching the apex

Of its assault on the shore

Approaching the rocky partition between

Infinity and here where

Every wave wells up within

Itself, seething with a noxious desire,

As it bubbles to a breaking point

Somewhere ordained

And froth pours from its shadowed mouth

As it falls, cascading seaward

Shattering its soul

In a desperate attempt to erase

The dark crags jutting

Into the surf like dead

Fingers reaching for the forgotten mainland.

Waves, dead fingers

And if you have any information

Please call

A list of names and dates

Decades of names and dates

And some dates just question marks

A list of unanswered questions

And if you have any information

Please call

A list of dead fingers

And hands and arms

And ears and eyes

And minds gone,

Lost—families, comrades

Memories, songs, smiles

Love between people—all gone,

All lost somewhere

In the waves or buried

Deep now in the decades

Where truth was as scarce

As sweet water

At the apex of a breaking wave.