From Cane Field to the Sea
Yasmin Morais
Copyright 2011 Yasmin Morais
Smashwords Edition
For Mikayla and Mariel, who keep me grounded, and for the Morais/Lindsay/Carey/Walker/Dobson/Madden and Jacobs clans. These poems reflect your stories too.
Contents
I. Black River Nostalgia
Black River Nostalgia
Belle’s Property
Belle of Black River
More Herstory
Blessings
II. Life, Love and Loss
Life
My Daughters’ Love
Today, They Told Oprah
Rain
Liming in Port Royal
Silent Hill, Manchester
Devon House
Questions in Jamaican Patois
My Father’s Sweet Mouth
My Mother and the Other Woman
Losing Carole
My Michael Jackson Memory
Butterflies
Billy
III. What I Learned in Canada
Bottom Line
The Road to Respect
Cocktail Parties
Snowstorms
Out of the Long Ago
Accents
At the Airport
Toronto Time
IV. Politics, Jamaican Style
Poetically Correct
Outside Gordon House
The Green Bay Massacre
International Monetary Fund
The Manifesto
The Day Castro Came
V. Head Space, and Other Psyche Issues
Depression’s Deep Abyss
A Bounced Reality Check
Brown Girl in the Ring
Learning Math
The New Planet
Negril Dreaming
Silence
The Night Season
From river side to mountain,
From cane field to the sea
Our hearts salute Jamaica,
Triumphant, proud and free
(From Jamaica, Land of Beauty. Lyrics by A.L. Hendricks and
music by Lloyd Hall).