When you get to know the village, it does change face.
A broken lintel gapes at vehicles winding past
The spot where Mohan blest his name in pitch, one night
After a gaff at Sadhu with the boys over
a flask of El Dorado. It is forty years,
……..but the greenheart still peels its paint in tears
dying useless on the block, hoping to be a saint,
better still an angel, hovering above the quiet
that haunts this place, waiting for resurrection day.
…………..
Old eyes dimmed by glare from the sole of these houses
that have not forgotten better times, from within,
when poverty was real and hunger was one crop
away. Them was times boy, when whitewash passed for paint
and Martin Carter spun his verse on silver paper
from cigarette box his boys smuggled through the bars,
to fan the seeds of revolution against the Raj.
That was the first and last time poetry mobilize
to be the vanguard of resistance and man stand like man
………………………………………………………….in its shade.
•••
Mac Donald Dixon is a visual artist, poet, playwright, actor, novelist and theatre director whose work reveals a man hopelessly in love with his country, St. Lucia. He was awarded the Saint Lucia Medal of Merit (Silver) in 1993 for his contribution to literature and photography.
tongues of the ocean 