Ah Dudley
Dudley, how did you bat today?
Did you hit the wooden ball with rubber wrapped
Over the starapple tree and far away?
Did you ride your bicycle past Knoxwood gate
Smell the cashew blossom and think of me?
Ah Dudley, what did you do today?
Did you cut sticks in the coffee orchard
And make as old the Calaban?
Did you go seven acres and check the swift beside the well?
Do they still grow peanuts there
And do the women and children come to pick
Where I toiled all day and earned nothing for it?
O Dudley, what did you do today?
Do the girls still come at night
For your company to the well? And is there
A long train of youngsters with buckets on their head?
Can they dance like Melveta or Ver, the cotta still in place
And will they gather when its done, to play ring games
While our elders from the fireside watch
The corns so that they will not burn? Can you smell the cashew fat
Oh Dudley, what did you do today?
I want to come again and see
Lime-kiln blazing up to heaven, its rainbow colors
Like a boy's first joy bursting in delirium. I want to touch
My Benbow's head, and quiet his bark from happiness
And hide in the moonshine guinea grass
Where no one finds me, though I pant
The one desired would come. I want to sing
The old folk songs and run and scream ...
Dudley, will these things be there if I come?
Did you climb the breadfruit tree
Or make a gig, or swam in Cecil's marl hole again
Can you still fight fearlessly
Will injustice against your boyhood passion win?
We have a great country, and a great home too
St. Elizabeth, land of the big long river, and the tall bambo
Dudley, I pine for it, please if needs be, die only for it
But live again for the beauty there.
Copyright © David Smalling | Year Posted 2010
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