There is no autumn here as you know it
no leaves that blush and fall and die.
Mango does not drop because September tells it to,
the island does not shiver, the sun does not go shy.
But Rasta knows autumn all the same,
not by the calendar, but by the ground.
When the rains have spoken and the earth is soft,
when the yam swells heavy, deep and brown.
Autumn is not orange, it is gold and green,
it is Ital from the garden, reaping what was sown.
It is callaloo and pumpkin from Zion's hand,
breadfruit roasting over fire, Jah's love made known.
It is the time of reasoning, of balancing the soul,
when Babylon says hurry, but I and I sit slow.
When the harvest comes, you count not what you lost,
but what you kept in spirit, what you let go.
No sweaters, no bonfires just incense in the dusk,
drums low like thunder, children husking corn.
Autumn in Jamaica is not an ending, seen
It is a keeping. A gathering. A returning home.
hush, a quieting word
hush up, a fighting phrase
hush-hush, a soothing term
hush puppy – tasty salty treat
husk, a hull of corn
husky, a stout curved-tailed dog
husking, shucking corn in Iowa
husky man, beefy, chunky and muscular
similar words
sometimes spelled identically
multiple meanings
English is not an easy language
You might be from a small midwestern town
If you know what husking corn means
You might be from Iowa
If your town was full of relatives
You might be from Nebraska
If you have heard the term huskers
You might be from Illinois
If you know a dairy cow from other cows
You might be from a small midwestern town
If your town had a square
You might be from a small town in the Midwest
If you collect money when someone dies
And give it all to the grieving
in meadows more verdant than evergreen
there is but an Orphic lyre that tingles
in dream’s delight,
haunting, husking, heaving
the songs my soul cannot reach
except in interludes of moonlight’s chant,
as the nearness of grasses twirl my hair
dancing with inner wolves
in velvet chorus...not of moaning trespasses
but for now,
if only for now,
on the stage of star-glow blushing my face
I am relieved from the rasp of past’s tatters...
this same plucking of lyre fiddles higher higher
while the movement of its rhapsody
dangles like a mythical lore on duskfall's arms
cleansing me from a silent scream so punishing.
Paint Me A Picture 4 for Silent One's Contest
10/11/2017
They crept in howling darkness,
With guns, machetes and
bombs,
Bringing down our walls,
Our gate, the center could not
hold.
They whispered in thundering
tones,
Spraying their bullets at will,
First on our mai guard,
and then, on the little dog that
barked.
Fears rained on our roofs,
We were awakened from a
beautiful dream
To behold a nightmare;
A husking reality.
We hugged ourselves,
In tears and prayers,
Waiting for the shadows to
drench us,
Waiting for death to engulf us.
Come out!!! they shouted
Be on a single queue
Una wan go school ba?
Their voice roaring like thunder.
Echoes of dust splattered.
Chaos of terror fell from our
skin.
As we marched into the truck,
Freedom was stripped from our
breast.
Paths grew darker,
Our mind fell from our hearts
We were laid on a slate
To become a skeletal fling of an
endless war.
We were girls yesterday
We are now slaves with no will
Mere toys for men's pleasure.
Someone please help, someone
help please.
I see brown leaves drooping, burn marks in the bark,
the populated gala, ignorant in the park.
...With obliviousness, boots are crushing-
the dreaming leaves that died before.
Wild roots, a strewn abroad,
rot from tip to base, a sad sad song.
...And the core
it's weeping, a noise severe that ears can't hear,
painful howling from the wood,
that individual ears misunderstood.
Yet over the tumult,
uproar crowd without remorse,
I wonder how the tree there died.
was it a plant's equivalent cyanide?
Staring at the husking shell,
littered with burnt butts and ashes-
the center of party hats and flashes,
a tobacco funeral straight from hell,
poor tree, I bid thee well.
A victim of stupidity and arson,
alcohol violence and poison.
Proof that nature hates the flaws of man.
I'll never know the pain thy has endured,
from life, reduced to shards of wood...
And all for humanity's entertainment,
...I think I understand the plant's equivalent cyanide.
Author's note: I am not sure about this poem. Does anyone think it's finished or does it
need more work?
I use to hike through Flankers’ un-cobbled street
With easel and canvas hawking my mind
Sketching the apiary’s tenement
Dull gray boxes densely scattered
Through the Spanish needle blooming wild
The brimming bees thought of me sometimes
Like a pest … intruding their waist waggling contrariness
And chased me in their screaming hive
Yet I kept going back there, incessantly, again and again
Something about them I could not shake from my pain,
From my matted mind, merging mnemonics of visual antics
Something more than husking their honey songs, frantic anxieties
Before the reap nectar joy, in deep abyss of altered memories
The image tabernacles … perched precarious icons faultless
Houses like matchboxes on tendril feet
Crablike clings on clustered rocks defying defeat
I lived there safe from the menace of winds that wilted
Better structures framed from punctual plans that silted us
Dams unbroken we flowed …leaving trembling shack of dreams
Clutched tightly in mirthless mothers’ unyielding hands.
The sun's rise,
The bird's chirp so precise.
The cock's clarion,
The drowsy puppies union.
The rustling of the trees,
The humming of the bees.
The tinkle of the bells.
The morning of the shell
The husking of the corn,
The cry of the new born,
The joy of the flowers,
The dew drops showers.
The fluttering of the butterflies:
The blue skies:
The peaceful breeze blowing-
The lambs lowing-
The new-mown hay,
The fields green and gay.
The milking of the cows.
With his noble bows.
It is time to be,
morning-the moment of joy, peace, glee and harmony.
I live in bliss, Ising with thee
In faith and hope I sing and pray
When day comes with dew on the lea
In faith and hope I sing and pray
Oft in prayers I lift my palms
In winter`s cold or summer`s heat
Under shades I lift my voice in psalms
At home and on the open street
To the graveside dirge voices lend
O the cadence itself is life
On which my hollow heart must mend
Dreary notes like cuts of a knife
The soft wind blow a cottage hymn
A thicket bird for twilight tweet
Where once all was quiet and grim
They seem to me a splendid treat
My prime is done and gone with age
December`s end quickens no sigh
Nor baneful tears to quench her rage
My path is bliss `tis not a lie
The husking darkness clouds my sight
A blanket doom waits not for me
I sleep but shall wake to find light
Break the mountain waves of the sea
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