Planes, Trains and Automobiles...

Chains, Shames and Automobiles

Few countries are proud of their past,
     they burry it with the glamor of now.

Our's is a story with hate and chains,
     which we remember with shame.

There are chains here too,
     but they are treated very differently.

A past of slavery and brutality,
     remembered with vibrance and joy.

A past of loss,
     but also of revolution.

How can we face ourselves and others,
     it we can't face our past.

We can't face our own past,
     and yet we think we can "help" those that cherish it.

Amidst the bustle of people and automobiles,
     a light bursts through.

These people fought their way out of slavery,
     but didn't we too?

Here it is out of slavery into humility and pride,
     for us  it is out of slavery into denial.


The future is where we are going,
     and the past is what gets us there.

By being ashamed of your past,
     you put yourself to shame.

But being one with you past...
     Well...

     That is truly living.
          The past IN you.
               The present WITH you.
                    The future WILL BE you.



A Note From The Author.

As we began our decent into Port au Prince I recalled the brief history of Haiti Dean Curran supplied us with.  It was a story filled with great strife and great joy.  I thought back to what I had seen last year, and all the colors, all the smiles, and all the music, heard and unheard.  After a time contemplating that I looked out the window, my thoughts now far away from Haiti, and now on the engineering of a plane.  The phrase "Plane, Trains and Automobiles" sprang into my head and stayed.  When we touched down I resumed my thinking about Haiti's past and the title for this piece took shape.  Chains, Shames and Automobiles.  I began to look at my own past,the United States history Mr. Omahoney pounded into my head, and I realized how many people don't know what I was taught in that class.  The word Shames now made sense, at first it just sounded "right" but now I saw how the two countries, so closely tied, where so starkly different.  One pushes its past further away, the other will know and cherish it until the end of time.  Haiti is to the US and pride is to fear.

                                                                                      Thomas L. Williams