Yemaya ta yora
Yemaya ta yora den un lucha ku lagrimanan
hogando e bandidunan den nan barkunan di sklabitut:
Konkistadonan kolonial makamba ku nan pia ohochi parasit
ku ketu bai ta probecha di labor pretu por nada.
Di un ekonomia di plantashi pa kapitalismo krioyo karibense
ku ta disidi ku e pal’i mango sagrado no por keda na bida.
Santu simia di Barba Jonkuman ta span su alanan,
priña rebeldiá kontra sinberguensanan diktando
ku Korsou mester bira ulanda tropikal.
Didjo ta puntra ki dia e por mira turismo den un aviso di morto?
Ekosidio lo boltu den reparashonnan di klima. Asina ta, asina ta.
E yeye tin ku zona bek atrobe i
e bichi kandela ta yora lusando tur kos
rekordando nos ku ta arkangelnan ansestral nan ta.
Tera su ofrenda ta kuminda i bida na abundansia:
Honra e kurandero spiritual. Asina ta, asina ta.
Yemaya’s tears
by Jermain Ostiana
Yemaya’s tears fight to drown the slave ship bandits:
White conquerors and their twin parasites
still profiting from Black unpaid labor.
From a plantation economy to creole Caribbean capitalism
that decides a sacred mango tree can’t live no more.
Holy Barbu Jonkuman seeds spread their wings,
impregnating rebellion against the greed that
chokes Curaçao into their tropical postcard.
Didjo asks: when are we going to see the obituary of tourism?
Ecocide will flip into climate reparations; so it be, so it be.
The dragonfly wants to be heard again, and
the firefly cries, illuminating everything
reminding us they are ancestral archangels.
Earth’s offerings: our food and abundant life.
Honor the healer. So it be, so it be.
Translated from the original Papiamentu by the author
Papiamentu
English
Sprouts that grew from this seed
Jermain Ostiana is a Black working class nemesis of colonial power structures in Curaçao and the Caribbean. A cultural worker and devotee of upliftment of new ancestral freeness.