Poem: "Carriacou" by Pamela Harrison
Carriacou
Carry-a-coo, a sound like birdsong, ring-necked doves sidling to sleep in a tamarind tree. This Isle of Reefs winks eight-by-three miles small in a peacock sea, where refugees from plagues of ants on Guadeloupe first fled with their thousand slaves. Abandoned here at manumission, unprofitable as a cracked jug, suffering two seasons—sodden and drought-- Cromanti, Ibo, and Chamba survived and thrive. Among their seven thousand descendants, we’ll raise to ten the number of white planter/volunteers. Arriving in a squall, the pilot takes two tries to land on a runway grazed by goats and cows. The road trickles out to a jungle trail, climbing vines insinuate through slatted blinds. Rain slithers in muddy waves beneath the doors, gurgles from the roof into a basement cistern, our “catchment for the year,” purified for us by some eyeless fish eating larvae in the dark. Too tired to unpack, we eat a meal of crackers and sardines. The cat mewls in unfamiliar rooms. Kate hums comfort to her dolls as the sun sinks into sea. No twilight softens the careworn day. When we turn on the lamp, every curious bug in the bush shoulders in to welcome us. From Glory Bush and Green Banana (Turning Point, 2017) |
LISTEN
Pamela Harrison reads Carriacou |