Om in the home.

Rain is beatin’ bhangra on zinc roofs, every now and then a chorus does join in with a wah, wah. In one neighbour yard, cokenut tree swooonging like Polynesian dancer. Outside me bedroom window, tall sugarcane leaves can’t compete with that slow, cokenut grace, they flingin’ up they long pointy leaves when plump raindrops plops ‘pon them.

My mother, back from a one-week stay in the US, is gyaffing on the phone. She bring bags o’ news from over there about sister, brother, aunties, cousins, chil'ren. Like hungry-dawg I tear open every piece she tell me, wrap them up again then later, I peel them open slow and savour every li’l word.

And things, she bring a few things too, that family send for me. Two cotton, beaded blouses from India, bath things, two skirts. I know these things can’t fill this space that gouge out in me when family did go away to live Abroad but, aiye, lemme tell you, I make the best of what I got. And what I got is them folks laughing on the phone with me, I got my mother filling me ears with wild family stories. And today, every bit of me is dancin’ to that wicked Om Shanti Om CD my sister send.

For a while, I can shut out bleak stuff that we news-people seem to believe is the only events bashing-up here.

I know in plenty other homes too they shuttin’ out the bleddy gloom too. Plenty folks I meet, they manage to accomplish what some of them so-called thinkers and opinionists here can’t grasp. You got to do something before something do you, some folks say.

They don’t wait for big guys to do for them. They dig they drains and farm, sell they produce; cook, sell food; blend green seasoning...thyme, shallots, basil and more, market it here and overseas. Them is the people I learnin’ from.

So when you see me movin’ to this rhythm, please don’t label me or try to fit me into political or race slots (like what some of we thinkers and opinionists here do to people here). When you see me movin’ to this riddim, I am simply livin’ and appreciatin’.