{{ {Nous avons le plaisir d’accueillir dans nos colonnes un texte poétique en anglais du Dr Rajandaye RAMKISSOON-CHEN de Vistabella, Trinidad & Tobago.} }}

{{DÈNYÉ KANN-LA}}

{ {{Jeunesses, profitez-en pour reviser votre anglais caribéen, et nous envoyer vos traductions, en créole ou français, via cette adresse [pierre.papaya@wanadoo.fr->pierre.papaya@wanadoo.fr]}} }

Enjoy!

_ THE LAST CANE

_ Fields of cane rows
_ on flat lands and slope
_ with arrowing flowers,
_ their leaves like green epaulets
_ on plantation masters’ shoulders.
_ The land was fertile
_ with the dung of buffalo
_ the furrowing sweat
_ of slave and indentured.

_ The land now is bare
_ with the black skin of death.
_ Dead too are the cane fires
_ that crackled rebellion,
_ doused by economy’s slide.

_ A sad-looking land, where
_ the money-plant is burnt
_ in the flames of a cane pyre,
_ in that last cremation rite.
_ The money-plant bore gold
_ and copper nuggets of fruit.
_ No lie, it seemed, no tricks
_ from the indentured-recruiters’ lips
_ that this island’s money
_ grew, for the picking, on trees.

_ Who weeps for cane?
_ The old cane-cutters whose cries
_ are snuffed in unmarked
_ tombless graves, their fingers
_ bent like scythes, gnarled
_ like the old samaan-tree branch
_ beneath which they sat and sang
_ and sighed to the stars of night
_ for the longed-for homeland
_ the playful sons who rode
_ the buffaloes backs, sucking
_ the sugariness of a Bourbon cane,
_ who later yoked themselves
_ to cut and bundle, load and cart.
_ They learnt cartloads of patience
_ when, in raw croptime sun,
_ they waited at the weighing scales.

_ A scion leaves the cushioned
_ swivel of his chair, dons
_ cloth cap and Wellingtons to cut
_ a last day’s cane.
_ ‘Too hard! Too hard!’ he relates,
_ his machete swiping the air
_ as the sweat of his mixed race drips
_ as his eyes recede
_ to a bygone past – his heritage,
_ to a slave progenitor,
_ to an indentured great grandmother.

_ Friday, May 25, 2007

_ DR. RAJANDAYE RAMKISSOON-CHEN
_ VISTABELLA,
_ TRINIDAD, WEST INDIES.
_ [wilfredgchen@hotmail.com->wilfredgchen@hotmail.com]

_ courtesy
_ [http://www.jahajeedesi.com/->http://www.jahajeedesi.com/]

_ Special thanks to Dr Deosaran Bisnath.

«My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those who work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was less competition there.» - Indira Gandhi.

{{INFO PLUS : RADIO TRINIDAD}}
_ Cliquez sur le lien

[Radio Shakti & Massala Radio->http://www.HotLikePepperRadio.com]