October 25th, 1983   by Dionne Brand       The planes are circling,   the american paratroopers dropping,   later Radio Free Grenada stops for the last time   In the end they sang— 5 “ain’t giving up no way,   no i ain’t giving up no way”       The OECS riding like birds on a cow   led america to the green hills of St’ George’s   and waited at Point Salines 10 while it fed on the young of the land,   eating their flesh with bombs,   breaking their bellies with grenade launchers       america came to restore democracy,   what was restored was faith 15 in the fact that you cannot fight bombers   battleships, aircraft carriers, helicopter gunships,   surveillance planes, five thousand american soldiers   six Caribbean stooges and the big american war machine,   you cannot fight this with a machete 20 you cannot fight it with a handful of dirt   you cannot fight it with a hectare of land free from bosses   you cannot fight it with farmers   you cannot fight it with 30 miles of feeder roads   you cannot fight it with free health care 25 you cannot fight it with free education   you cannot fight it with women’s cooperatives   you cannot fight it with a pound of bananas or a handful of fish   which belongs to you       certainly you cannot fight it with dignity.     30 because you must run into the street   you must crawl into a ditch   and you must wait there and watch   your family,   your mother, your sister, your little brother, 35 your husband, your wife,   you must watch them   because they will become hungry,   and they will give you in to the americans,   and they will say that you belong to the militia, 40 or the health brigade,   or the civil service,   or the people’s revolutionary army,   or the community work brigade,   or the New Jewel Movement— 45 they will say that you lived in the country,   they will say that you are Cuban,   they will say that you served cakes   at the Point Salines airport fundraising,   they will say that you are human, 50 they will say   that one day last month   you said that for four and a half years   you have been happy.   they will say all this because they want to eat.     55 And finally you can only fight it with the silence of your   dead body.