Biography 1
English Harbour, Antigua
Born in this village,
yet a stranger,
I paint
pictures for posterity,
for memories, like relics,
are stolen by marauding age.
Village anglers, reddened,
sea-salted, reeking of fish,
announce catches with
gusty, conch shell blasts.
Crowds gather, banter and barter.
Women sit on large verandas
round cotton heaps,
hum, sing and pluck boll weevils
from cotton beaten into soft, white fluff.
Cattle farmers herd mooing cows
in from pastures, and
chat with others homeward bound.
Hoes and pick-axes weigh down shoulders.
In the crowded rum shops,
the quiet play of checkers
compete with laughter and
slamming dominoes.
As night grows old
and rum’s swigged down,
raucousness rival stories
about smuggling and raids
and playing cat and mouse
with the law.
Brer Rabbit, Brer Anancy,
Brer Fox make each other
bahzadi and kunumunu.
Jablesses and sukanahs,
jumbies and cow-foot women
terrify nights, haunt dreams.
Obeah men sell cure-alls.
Droughts and hurricane
devastate the land.
Driven to England,
America, Canada
new, unwanted immigrants
dream of a better life,
do unpalatable labor,
become builders of other nations.
© Althea
Romeo-Mark
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