Fergus Allen
A Samaritan Surprised
Hewing and thrusting through the scrub,
Grasped at by strangling figs,
Shouldered by dipterocarps, impaled
On spiny palms, I came
To a man-made absence of trees.
Parting the fronds I peered
At a bare podsol-floored arena
In which I saw a man,
Naked, bound tightly to a post
And moaning through his gag.
Just two of us, one free, one captive,
Hearing the bell-like cries
Of unconcerned and unseen birds
High in the dripping canopy.
I without thinking forced my way
Into the green-walled clearing
And ran—a dozen leaping steps—
To cut the victim free.
But as I reached the stake, in tumult
Men of all sizes broke
Shouting from the sheltering forest,
Gesturing with machetes,
And seized me roughly, held me down,
Intimidating me
With incomprehensible threats.
Just as they bore me off,
On the refracting edge of vision,
I saw the seeming prisoner
Slip free his wrists, quickly unwind
The cords I thought so fast
And merge into the howling troupe.
Did I—or was it fancy?—
Glimpse the forerunner of a grin
Flicker below his features?
Fearful, carried by twisting footways
Cut through the bush, we reached
A hunter's hut, dim, thatched and smoky,
Set between buttressed trees;
Inside they threw me on a mattress
Of dusty leaves and skins.
And then, as if a lamp had bloomed,
The scowls and anger vanished,
Replaced by whoops of laughter, gleeful
Contortions, tears of mirth.
Gently, with reassuring smiles,
They set me on my feet.
Women arrived with pots of stew,
We ate, and from a gourd
I drank some stinking liquor, braved
The bizarre hilarity,
Saw moving lights, stumbled and slept.
I woke alone with visions
Flying like bats inside my skull
While pain surged in my bowels.
Out of control, invading words,
Images, arrows, fragments,
Flashed and sieved through my mind like shoals
Of krill and silver smelt
Through a spreadeagled net. For days,
Night after night, I groaned,
Feeling myself observed by something
Among the cobwebbed rafters
That hung head down and never stirred
But crepitated dryly.
When time no longer moved, a stranger
Speaking my language came,
Raised me from where I lay inert
In fetid pools and darkness,
And with a case of foreign medicines
Healed me, restored my strength.
Venturing out, we scraped through leafage
That overgrew a world
Of stridulating insects, slashed
At thorny growths and branches,
Arduously steering for safety.
But from dense jungle burst
A roar of maledictory voices,
And the same savage men
Brushing aside the dangling epiphytes
Raged wildly out to take us.
I fled and hid, but looking back
Saw carried off unconscious,
Bound with lianas, my true doctor.
Fergus Allen, The Brown Parrots of Providencia, Faber and Faber,
1993.