Keith D Trestrail | + Follow Poet |
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Notes About The Poem

A Past Life

I lived on Gray Street when I was a boy
  and rode my bike up hither and yon.
Now my home is a concrete parking lot
  and all its spirits and souls are gone

I sang at Greyfriars church as a child
  and learnt all about moth and rust.
I learnt nothing is permanent or fixed 
  and it too fell into rubble and dust

I jump and danced at the Country Club
  when fete and revelry came to town.
Music played all night in the dance hall
  but its colonial past was torn down

I worked at the old store on Broadway
  inside its chain doors and iron cage.
But now it sits a vacant lot condemned
  to history lost to a demolition age

I loitered and limed at the Pelican Inn
  in my rum diary in younger days.
Up on Coblentz Avenue from its ruins
  the inn that stood has been razed

I remember in my grandfather’s house
  when voices did echo every room.
Now strangers walk among the dead
  and feels more like a family tomb

I feel the evocation of spirit and soul
  that these forsaken places outlast.
But I have watched life and time erase
  the bricks and mortar of my past


            Written: July 2025



Pictured above is Greyfriars Church 
in Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago. 
The church my parents got married 
in and where as a child I went to 
Sunday School. The holy church my 
faithful aunts spent a lifetime of 
devotion and service. All torn down.
All these places I knew are gone.

A fete is island speak for a party
and a lime is a social gathering.

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