Poems Published in The Caribbean Writer, 2016
I love my many homes,
Antigua, where I was born, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands where I grew up,
Liberia, West Africa where I became a responsible adult, through teaching,
marriage and motherhood, and Switzerland where I embraced middle-age and where
I am learning to grow old gracefully as my father has taught me by example.
Each place has left its socio-cultural stamp on my spirit and memory and are
molders of who I have become.
This blog features two poems published in volume 30 of
The Caribbean Writer in December
2016. Both have a common theme—a road, a street, thoroughfares that we take on
the path to adulthood.
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| http://www.thecaribbeanwriter.org |
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| (English Harbor, Antigua) |
The poem “Nameless
Road,” is set in English Harbor, Antigua, where I was born and left at age
eight. It is a place I revisited in 2014 after this poem was written.
It was a “blitz”
visit and unfortunately the road remains nameless because I spent too much time visiting its tourist attractions and less time visiting my roots.
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| Kronprinsendgade is a long street that leads to downtown Charlotte Amalie. |
The second poem “The
Old Cat on Our Street” is set on Kronprinsensgade, St. Thomas, US, Virgin
Island, previously, a Danish colony (1672-1917).
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| Plot of land that held our house in English Harbor. |
Nameless Road
We lived in a wooden house
on a road, the name
I have forgotten.
Not that I haven’t tried to remember.
It was so long ago
that in the sifting of events,
it is a mere grain in memory.
But it is on this nameless road
in a village, on a Caribbean island,
that I came into a world
of fishermen, farmers,
fables and folktales,
the realm of ghosts.
They dwell in my heart and head.
Bed in my marrow,
they are the mind-prints of
my earliest journeys.
I carry them with me
wherever I go.
© Althea Romeo-Mark, 2014
The Old Cat on Our Street
We barricade ourselves
behind latticed windows
in a dwelling above Pucho’s Grocery.
Safe from the woman’s
rumored witches’ wiles,
we shout her name.
“El Gato!”We scream.
Too young, we do not know
the story behind her branding.
The wrinkled, thin “El Gato”
is Death in our eyes.
How dare Death walk the streets
that belongs to youth!
El Gato’s gait is slow.
Loose flesh cloaks her bones.
Our relentless chanting
of her name is the spell
we have learned to will
her out of sight.
Sometimes when we dream
of ghosts, we shout her name
in our sleep.
© Althea Romeo-Mark, 2014
Now that I am older, I reflect often upon my roots. I feel the need to
physically return to them in order to reinforce and hold fast to memories
before they lose their bright edges and fade like old pictures.
How do you hold on to your memories that are the foundation of who you
are?
Departure/Arrival
I
Departure
We are driven away from English Harbour,
watch the village flee into distance:
its sea-splashed coves,
its tiny island houses, some thatched,
some wearing sun-glinted, galvanized roofs,
its brown men on cane-stacked donkeys,
pickers plucking cotton and the smells of
callaloo, pepper-pot and dukanah
teasing the sweltering air.
It is the beginning of losing part of ourselves.
II Arrival
Father makes a heroic figure
guiding the landed plane on the runway.
We watch as its swirling fans settle into standstill.
Valises in hands, we disembark to new
landscapes.
Our old island home is transformed into an
idyllic realm.
Its scenes become locked-away treasure taken out
with flourish and shared at special gatherings.
Our hands dance in the valleys and hills of loud
recalling.
©
Althea Romeo-Mark 2015
English Harbour- a
natural harbor and settlement on the island of Antigua.
Callaloo, pepper-pot
and dukanah- food specialties of the Caribbean
© Althea Romeo-Mark, Educator, Caribbean writer
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