Keith D Trestrail Poet Lyric

Notes About The Poem

The paddocks and stables of Blue Range have long since disappeared developed for housing. Asis was the name of a stable hand at Blue Range who fed and groomed and bathed and exercised the horses and enjoyed a drink of rum. He was fun to hang out with and kept us occupied as kids when we would visit.

Listen to poem:

Blue Range

In the fields to the great kiskadees’ trill
         digging for topitambo in the long grass -
our small dirty hands our basket to fill 
  with Asis’s wide toothless grin and cutlass.

To watch his grizzled face tight from rum 
              cut coconut and dasheen bush slash -
he say “Master Skeet, here try some”
  and sit and eat callaloo from a calabash.

These are the roots of an age unmistook 
   when its old budding leaves of time shook.
A time of seasons and a time of change 
      back long ago in the stableyards
   with horse and groomer in Blue Range.

 On Diego Martin lowlands days passed
  slowly with such sweet fancy not yet dimmed,
licking the dark sticky raw cane molasses,
    the pulp and juice of the plump tamarind.

Eating deep red pomerac and julie mango,
            toolum and sugar cake fast disappear -
pink guava and sugar apple sweet for so,
    sapodilla, sour sop, and pommecythere.

These are the fruits of an age unmistook 
   when its old budding trees of time shook.
A time of seasons and a time of change
      back long ago in the stableyards
    with horse and groomer in Blue Range.



                    Written: May 1996

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