17 Sweet Briar Road - Port of Spain
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Wistful is the heart, silent the walls
where the gambols of youth echoed.
A return tale’s sentimental journey
inside the gates of Sweet Briar Road
Long it behoves me my thanksgiving
to you, aunties Yvonne and Jocelyn T.
For all the love you showed withal
and for all the good you saw in me
Hearken the jumbie bird in the night,
the heat of day and smell of rain.
And QRC bell tower sombre tolled
the hills and valleys of Port of Spain
The crowd’s roar filled its cricket halls
on window row to a grandstand view.
And an open door its gates would be
to weary travellers passing through
By candlelight on evensong sabbath
I saw hands petitioned in God’s raise.
And among portrait, altar and chattel
an old ne-gro woman chanted in praise
Downstairs eating pepper mango,
salt prune and sweet preserved plum.
And upstairs the ghosts of the dead
a trickery of wind and light become
With long treetop fruit picker in hand
softly chorused the sound of Greyfriars.
When joyfully as I picked to my ear
sung the weekly Church Group Choir
Up creaky staircase bedroom chamber,
pantry annex and old livery quarters.
Home to where my grandfather lived
with his wife, eight sons and daughters
In Christian soldier evangelical prayer
waited I for sleep’s silent lull perchance.
O but late by BBC midnight wireless
did growl the dogs in lunar trance
I followed the trail back to its past -
a prodigal son on long returned stay.
When time and fate and the risen sun
dawned upon a much younger day
Written: January 1993
Copyright © Keith D Trestrail | Year Posted 2022
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