Canto I

Halfway tree. The journey of our life found me

there at midnight in a ramshackle state,

for to tell you the truth my feet had strayed.

Tongue cannot tell how this place was tough,

to talk of it make me frighten all over again.

Bitter! Barren! Only death itself could be worse.

But the price that I pay for my survival is this:

I am now must and bound to tell of the good

I found down there; well ma'am, well sir.

How to tell how I reach down there so is hard

but my mind was mixed up, contrary, divided

and I slip and slide way from the straight path.

I walk and walk till I get to the foot of a mountain

at the end of Stony Valley where what I saw

all but caused my heart to attack me in my chest.

I look up and see the shoulders of the mountain

decorated with sun beams sent by the guide

planet to cheer the pure-in-heart along their way.

And when I see this my fear was dampened a bit

so that the panic that did pitch

and toss me all night to my heart's core, abated.

Like a swimmer who out of her depth in big sea,

who battle the waves till she reach shore,

and as she blow for breath she marvels how she

manage to escape from that grave watery death.

Just like that, I turned back to study with awe

the dark pass none before me did ever leave alive.

And as I catch up my weary self, I start to climb

up the rocky mountain, making sure to put

my foot where I'd have no cause to slip and fall.

When lo and behold, there on the mountain slope

a leopardess! Pardner, her foot light, it swift!

Her skin spotted like black ink on ivory dominoes.

She was shuffling there staring dead into my face.

Block, she try block my every step, all I could do

was shape and shift sideways. By now it was near

break of day, the morning sun was rising up to take

the place of the lingering stars surrounding

Love Divine whose hands connected the Great Lights

and turn them on, on high to shine; ah, the soft early

hours, the tender doctor breeze, cause me to feel I

could conquer the ferocious, fanged, spotted beast.

But that hope proved to be weak; not strong enough

to overcome my fear when I see tearing down

upon me, a lion! Massive dread! Hungry driving him

like a big engine, so that even the breeze blow like

it fraid. Then a she-wolf she lurking beside him.

Craven, scrawny, maugre, you could see white squall

at her mouth corner and you know she had caused

many to suffer and feel it. The sight of her broke

my spirit, and I give up right there so any hope of being

able to climb up that mountain; and like someone

who is a worldlian, who one day loses all their

earthly possessions, just sinks down into despond

that makes them cry cri as give-up spirit overtakes,

it's so I became in the presence of the wild beasts

bearing down the mountain on me step by step.

And as I was beating my retreat to a lower level

before my frightened eyes a big woman appeared,

her voice calm like for a long time she'd been quiet.

And when I see her in that wretched place, I plead

'Help me do! Pity me, whoever you may be,

living somebody or May Pen Duppy, do help me!'

She: 'I did alive one time, but now mi not living.

Me come from good parents. My father was a baker

mi mother was a dressmaker and I born when King

George siddown pon him throne. Me was a little gal

pickney when I wish upon a star fi the gift fi write

poetry that praise mi people inna wi own Jama tongue.

That wish mek me the target of plenty fling stone.

But I never stop defend wi language.

I train at RADA; fi mi stage was the whole world.

But why you going back down to crosses and woe?

why yu don't go on climb up the higher heights

to Mount Boonoonoonoos, up to the peak of Joy?'

'Are you, Miss Lou, the fountainhead of Inspiration

from whom the Hope River of creativity flows?'

So I ask her - my head in respect-due bowed down.

'O Lady, you are the queen of our people's hearts,

in the name of my faithful study of your books

my regard for your wit and eloquence, help me please!

You were my model and mentor, and it is from your

example I have crafted this hybrid style for which

people worldwide give me speak; you see that beast

I am running from? Please do protect me from her,

O mother of our yard, for my blood is trembling

in my veins with fear, I shiver as I stand up here.'

'You going have fi go by a different way,' she said,

'if yu going mek your way out a this bitter place

for that wild beast there that mekking you so fraid

she don't allow nobody fi prosper, flourish nor thrive.

She standup block the road, she kill who pass by,

her nature so gravalicious, run-gainst and bad-mind

her appetite can't satisfy; even if she get a belly full

that mek her want more, and she join up with

some other blood-sucker who is her combolo.

And she going gwaan same way till such time when

the great one, who nuh come fi nyam off

the fat a the land, but fi feed wi wid wisdom, come.

That good one going be the Caribbean saviour.

The one who Grandy Nanny, Marcus Garvey,

and all a wi freedom fighter been preparing for

cross our arc of islands in every village and town.

That one going drive the beast till she drop back

to hell from where satan send her fi tear wi down.

Right now, I think it best you follow behind me so

I can guide yu through this Godforsaken den

where yu going witness worries, crosses, and woe

and see some ancestral spirits who tormented,

a lament how dem dead, not one time, but...