To Franckétienne, Immortal Among Men

You are not dead. Stars do not die; they eclipse for a moment, just long enough for our eyes to adjust to their brilliance, which has become too vast for our horizon.

You are not dead. You have merely changed state, as water becomes a cloud, as wind becomes a whisper. You have melted into the ether of thought, where only free spirits will reach you, where Haiti weeps and still hopes, cradled by your words that have become roots.

You are not dead, Franckétienne. In every insurgent syllable, in every poetic cry, in every dream of a people standing tall, your breath resonates. You are in the crumpled pages of collective memory, in the feverish crossings-out of today's writers who seek to speak of Haiti as only you knew how to write it.

What could one wish for you, if not the eternity you built for yourself, stone by stone, letter by letter, in this language you loved so much, that you challenged and reinvented?

Go, walk still in our consciences, illuminate our doubts, sing our revolts.

Time has no hold over those who dared to be greater than it.

Fritz Eder JEUDY