rode bareback around Caymanas,
prime cane acreage run efficient by his dad.
Yes, man, he’d go riding, boy Perry,
leave the fields, the factory,
the maid-appointed luxury of the busha’s lodge,
hair mad like a Hollywood Indian,
track the hill to Pinnacle to scout the Rasta mass,
originals taking refuge in hundreds
homesteading in the pledge of Howell.
Gangunguru Maragh,
vegan, ganjaman, black boss and prophet.
The Gong.
It’s not black and white, says Perry,
whiteness warming into ochre—
the sun a setting gel.
It’s never been. Look at the sea.
Whether you like it or not—who knows,
you might be into navy, periwinkle more,
I hope—
feelings don’t affect a fact.
That water has no color, what you see is an effect,
and, listen, ignore my logic if you want
for I don’t business. True is true.
Rangers. That is what they are.
We don’t have police here—we have rangers.
Employed by the landful against the landless.
Paid to shoot to kill.
So check it. This whole facking island
is a damn estate, a checkerboard
of traps and schemes. Power game.
What you can expect?
Listen, if I was black like you, Colin.
Well, not like you—you know what I mean—
I’d elect to take up guns.
Ahhhhhhh, Perry.
Revolutionary to rass.
FIRST RECRUITS
They answered when the Queen
called, wanting constables,
dependables,
regulars to keep order after riot
rumbled to rebellion back in 1865,
the year impatience with the free
we’d got came out in uprush.
Thirty years nearly after slavery
and the liberty half cooked.
They’re kin to my mother’s hill people.
Tea dark. Strong featured.
Hair that gets comb teeth caught up.
Turning on a rush mat, a coir mattress,
lighting a lamp in a tatu cotched
on land with no title,
catching water,
dabbing on a little obeah,
dressing in the fashion
of the humble decent—
careful not to rip, stretch out,
alert for wrinkles,
palming down the seams.
Their minds were rank with the killings
when they went to sign up.
They imagined a hint of burnt wood,
remembered an odour of rot
although History had been clever
with the evidence, had left the dead
outside to menace, later ganged up
scared survivors into throngs,
quick and efficient from habit,
frugal by rote. Not a single finger
more assigned than what backra
thought it ought to take
for wogs to scoop
and chuck and barrow
blood and neighbors into pits.
Of those who came,
nine hundred plus were taken.
Sharp-eyes, big hearts,
plenty meat
between the blades.
Feet with arches.
Walking proudly. Traitors
falling into place.
LEA
I.
They played coc’nut bough
cricket in the growing season,
attended school half time,
otherwise worked with grown-ups,
cutting, ratooning, drawing water
from the spring that drove the wheel.
Thirty years, a generation plus
from slavery, and Lea,
my mother’s great-grandad
and Nev, his closest friend,
were living mostly in their
great-grandparents’ world,
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