Acts of Kindness
Family visiting, cousins from the old days,
hadn’t been back for forty years, refugees
from the bad days of nothing in the shops,
fear of always being below, no future for the children,
they with gifts, brought back memories,
then it was bare food my wife didn’t have;
now it was a tablecloth wonderfully embroidered
and, for me, bottles of Niagara wine.
Over Guiana, Clouds3
Kykoveral.
Strange name for stones, a heap of stones
But a strong name to take imagination
And tie it to a peak in Time
Above lost plains drowned by the later names.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Part I
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three,
‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stoppest thou me?
A lively and valuable gift for the season and a rousing way to end a year whose flame was somewhat dampened by a prolonged pandemic, is a blast of folk songs.
They are here again. Despite the strictures of COVID-19, masquerade bands have already begun to appear on the streets of Georgetown for the 2020 Christmas season.
For Don Drummond
Dem say him born
with a caul,
a not quite opaque
white veil
through which he visioned
only he knew
At birth dem suppose
to bury it
under some special tree.
Attunement of the Senses
Who has an eye for Nature’s beauteous forms
And lends an ear to trap her melody,
Will see the rose a sudden scarlet blush
When shyly bursting forth in dewy morn;
Observe the riotous splash of colour spilled
Across the palest blue of Heaven’s dome;
Will harken to the noise of kneeling grass
Which furious, fitful winds keep trampling o’er;
Will hear the symphony of weeping skies
Euphoniously played on tresses green;
Will smell the dampness of the rain-scoured earth
And deep inhale the fragrance of its flowers;
Will taste the freshness of the laughing brook
And smack the lips in sheer delight of being;
Will feel a oneness with Divinity,
Dynamic; indivisible; serene
All these and more perceived and understood
Is proof .
Bill Rogers is still a household name here so many decades after he was active in show business, musical recordings and popular entertainment in Guyana, the Caribbean, the USA and the UK.
Though there are those who create and perform for the love of it, because it is a hobby, or because they are in an environment where professional theatre is not developed, theatre around the world today is big business.
Throughout history, tales of the Indies were often as romantic and sensationally exotic in appeal as they were superficial, but today playwrights produce work of more depth.