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

The Trees of D'abadie

  Where sets the sun again
far from the din of Port of Spain
  shadows fall on the plain.
And on that plain over I strode
when the wind its trees winnowed
  up the old Eastern Main Road

  Now in woodland D’abadie
in this land’s sport of kings I see
  a ravage of a foregone glory.
Hitherto as a child and as a man
its rich memories my lifetime span
  to long before its end began.

  Where yon the stable gate
a man and his thoughts ruminate
  upon his own mortal estate.
Verily I had hoped in years past
those trees on which my eyes cast
  might live on and me outlast.

  Oft I remember picking fruit
and standing on a big gnarly root
  as an iguana up would shoot.
When back on sunrise trail I’d see
horse ‘n rider under a samaan tree
  in saddlecloth and saddlery.

  I miss on a hot wind’s blow
the rising pan and beating calypso
  echo over Rancho Caballero.
When the sun blazed a big red sky 
and roosts in the night to you and I
  sung a tropic island lullaby.

  In late porch light shimmer
the big sky grew dim and dimmer
  and belfry trees did glimmer.
But now the trees make no sound
for none on this land can be found
  but the felled on the ground.

  Where stood a mare or cow
in the shade of a silk cotton bough
  dozers now dig and plough.
It’s hard to watch and truly sad
to watch disappear things we had
  once upon a time in Trinidad.

  There is a price and a cost
alas of all the trees cut and tossed
  and to this land forever lost.
But still yet remains in D’abadie
planted seeds of life and ancestry
  in the roots of a family tree!


    Written: January 2018

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