Unfinished History

We spoke the history of Flankers under the roof Of your old school And I, O I went interviewing for the proof I have that little book lost somewhere But in my heart I read it still The little brown church upon the hill The iron caterpillars clawing into stone The thrill of the poor man to capture and own An heritage where ancestors blood was spilled. King, the first boy born there lost his life fishing Beside his father in the airport bog, we Wept for them three weeks and more, singing And making light to ease the heavy hearts of loss Brownie, the first man to settle after years there On the estate smelling the wine of sugar Roasting in the sun. I saw your son In New York and was not intimidate of his skills In maths again, he was just a another statistics Like myself, and our hearts were cistern broken Before our birth. The first girl born there is now an officer of the law O could we run those days again Crazy in the childhood of our dream The choir of birds in fruiting trees The endless complain of working bees ... O their nectar made all sorrows sweet The evening in the sand bed Pretending we were Quarrie or Bolt today And the stars older than us Longing for us to return their dust. I wrote the history of that place ... the Easter Rebellion Kenyatta, Desmond, Cyril, Jiggs, Dragon And King Baz ... O that was a brilliant son. Corbett Only walk and complain about dead politics now But there was another time, we were young And the sun was our liquid gold to dream They came with the constabularies and machines That tore rocks and buildings up But could not spill us from our cup We drank it all. Today across the globe we are gone None return to die Where they began And so lonely now the forest obsolete The dried out swamp The tourist that will not see again the lamp Of Bredda, Nunsa and I Catching crabs ... I left a tree my kite to fly An old tree that entangled me ... The history that began me before I finished it.