"Marvellous gift…always said so
…wish I had it."
̶ Samuel Beckett, "Happy Days"
Back into the fold they'd smack your head if eyes so
much as think of link with bouncing black as night limb
intimations. Our path was set, the English pass marked
our veils and hair.
Raised watching cricket we kept faith seeking fast balls
out hit seamers high beyond the boundary. From safe
crease to rest stop we scurried, rum happy runs
in the stands.
At public school with numbers pure mind ruler we'd
ground algebra in masala, fence our neighbours whole
sale loss ̶ distinction incubating, indenture optimized.
Our family choice, the surgeon god play: scrub up, scruples
under, invest through neat exclusions; chide swab the closed
heart bleed stitch tight what's torn with in house wiring
suicide cells.
Not bad for a village lad whose father knew plantation
thirst and cow and hurt left unattended. You should see
Pa when he visits his grand child here in Ox shire.
His cutlass gasps pride edging forehead lines; bare foot
he shuffles out to lawn chairs flowers biscuits Tetley
tea. Here the greening rain salves old sod turning hands.
Good paddy, our Son, he smiles, viewing the dinner
cutlery.
Head stones will scroll
House once stilt stuck
Home yard broom free
These bones we grow
or throw
Good gracious me.
– W.W.
THE ANT
The ant's a terrible thing,
being, I mean,
so intent upon doing.
Consider this one taking
home a massive
morsel of that dead fly's wing,
going the same way he came,
passing others
coming to duplicate him,
this worker wasting no time
greeting his peers,
giving each only a shame-
less superficial kiss
before moving
on. Should I crush one of his
brothers, he would simply pass
by and forget
it. Such singlemindedness
(Mr. Tang says one straight line
completes Tai, the
Chinese character that signs
Great) frightens me, reminding
me of maniacs
like businessmen going blind
straining at their proving grist.
But the ant, in
his moment of an utmost
outside of men's best and worst,
stays well beyond
burdens of future and past.
(from "Nor Like An Addict Would" © by Brian Chan)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 