Ode To My Father

Alms Inn, there is the place again, and here I, far away, muse in the house I grew O this village of my love, has grown too The golden hills with lilacs filled, the sweet Soft of morning dew, and my dusty feet Leaving his brighter sun for school and care Whilst he with poetic dreams filled the air And orange blossoms buzz with fragrance fair And O, orange blossoms buzz when In my mind I hear his voice again. Father, fragile though festive fold of hills Where drought walks dissonant on dribbled dreams Your memory abides here still, and bright streams Of laughter where you paced or sat unveiling History and poetry and farmed feeling Of the world. Like a nightingale's voice spills Through the village gate, sublime as sacred thrills The organ dissipates, and crannies fills With thy deep eloquence and pride And thy wide eyed child by your side. Regal of an African line, birth low Amidst the Maroon bramble, up you came Out of the German mire of blood, a flame Carrying bushman and midwife through night The falcon feathered for the frolic of flight Over foreign spires, in the bright rainbow Father, still your footsteps that path does show Mud deep, bright towards the future we go Athlete, scholar, tempest and mist Man above men will foes insist And I today churn in praise my new lines Waking like a womb of fresh beginnings A virgin voyage of my form, deep gleanings Of the mind's creativity. I bring It, tribute to you, blush before my king For whose awesome form my love matchless pines Seeking your worth in joys of new designs To carve your honor on our human minds First of our black place to unfold Upon white space petals of gold. This proud veterinarian, this wave That pulse across the Caribbean's shores This first in rank in all the shackled chores This noble patron of the arts, this child Of business, that upward through nights here toiled To say I am free, stir now gloomy grave You shall not hold him forever a slave When jubilee comes, and our God shall save For of all the joys that is known He loved his God, and grace was shown Time and us are leashed memories With time I tell love's true stories And so its oft, when love in fancy strays I to Alms Inn, where my boyhood still plays In St. Elizabeth, behind the brimmed drays Here in white pattern of dust I reclaim The glory of my father, all my name For we are nothing who have no past, sir No identity the shard soul to stir Shorn from the traditions of father's ways.