66 white tall steps of
The Queen's Staircase
agleam,
rising to the crag,
where hills of solid rock house
the Capitol . . .
Far right, looms
the Governor's Mansion, hewn
out of stone cliffs by slave hundreds
in chain gangs, who wielded their one tool, the
driell.
A chopper. A rock-hacking scythe.
The axelike curved blades, two-edged, flung to either side
of the wooden shafts
like jaws of a hammerhead shark, flash
in the midday
sun....
We see,
again :
hundreds of menials
linked by metal leg cuffs, thick anklets,
strung out in long teams, so little space between toilers
their swings nearly graze the bare calves
of the next in line; but the rhythm of hillside progress–
a tromp and trudge
in lockstep paced by the tom-toms - is
a precision dance:
no missteps,
no slips of the swung blades,
as the workforce wends its clockwise
course over Government Hill's rocky face .... We conjure,
today, the grim morning platoons,
some eight or nine rows at once, one rotating tier of hoop–
backed rock crushers
stationed over the other, so many
ant colony
