IntroductionThe
narrator remembers how ancient watercourses have become dead stream, with
footsteps carved on the sands which once contained the streams. The mother now
has become old (‘grey’) but her love for her husband is green.
“and
my mother rains upon the island with her loud voices
With
her grey hairs
With
her green love”
The Narrator’s Description of the Work Place of His Father
The
second part of the poem starts dramatically as the narrator asks us to watch
“the grey street where my father works”.
He has
gone through busy streets full of bicycles, donkey carts and the cries of fish
sellers. He is working in a warehouse owned by a “white man of sugar”. He is a
‘marker of bags, maker of chalk dust’. He carries jute loads climbing up an old
and creaking staircase. He has left Africa for America. Ironically also, he has
left Africa only to transport chalk dust (the miner’s treasure) in America.
In the
meantime, the mother is pining away for him with her ‘gold rings of love’.
“While
my mother sits and calls on Jesus name
She
waits for his return
With
her gold rings of love”.
She
has been waiting for such a long time that the poet says that,
“She
waits with back
Slowly
curving to mountain
From
the deeps of her poor soul”.
She
imagines that her husband is minting money, though in reality, he is working as
a slave in a plantation answering the ‘roll call’. The irony is complete when
the narrator ends the poem saying, “I’ll be there”. Not knowing the reality of
the situation in the plantations, every African dreams of going to the land
‘Columbus founded’.
The
poem ends with the burthen,
“When
the roll is called up yonder” repeated four times to stress the fact of
slavery. Maybe, the mother referred to here is Africa. The father is evidently
the African citizen who has forsaken his motherland foolishly to work elsewhere.
As a consequence, Africa is drying up. The irony is heightened when the poem
ends with ‘I’ll be there’. The poem ends on a note of pessimism as the problem
of Africa seems to be incurable with the prospect of continuous drain looming
large.
Conclusion
The title ‘Alpha’ is significant as it is ironic. ‘Alpha’ means the beginning. The poem contrasts the beginning of Africa, its ancient water courses, with the plight of the Africans abroad. The last line which reiterates the idea of the drain with ‘I’ll be there’ is also ironical as it suggests that it is also beginning the ‘alpha’ of the exodus.
