Planetary Stories Project

"To Act Globally, Think Locally – Through Stories"

Black Earth Institute

Place: Belmont, Trinidad, the Caribbean

Ode to Belmont
By Mervyn Taylor

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Ode To Belmont 

No town planner laid you out.
Some crafty slave, turning and twisting
his way to freedom, came to settle
in the shadow of the foothills. 
And then others came, looking up
to the ridge where they would climb
if anyone followed. And the zigzag
trail of their footprints became the lanes 
and alleys you are infamous for, where
policemen were given wrong information,
so they went back to their stations
tired and disoriented. 
Your goats and chickens passed freely
between yards, and neighbors looked in
on each other without straining
their eyes, so close were the houses. 
Burial grounds up the Valley Road
you laid out in the Rada tradition, paths
snaking among the graves so the ancestors
could return when they were summoned,  
as they were on a Friday night, drums
in the Antoine compound calling the ones
across the hills, the Shango yards full
of praise and dancing spirits.  
And on Friday nights too, the Baptists
appeared at the top of Cadiz, sprinkling
rum and ringing the bell. No sooner
their white flowers withered 
the Anglicans and Catholics began
competing for our souls. But you
stayed true to the ancients, the women
at the stickfights ripping petticoats  
to tie the bleeding heads. The Savannah,
that open plain where enemies might
easily be spotted in all directions, belonged
to you, Freetown, land you could claim
because you saw it first, every morning,
a green mat at your door, horses cantering
in the early mist, children playing under
the Three Palms, happy, home a shout away.  

                                               Mervyn Taylor

Note: Belmont, formerly known as Freetown, a city/suburb of Port of Spain, Trinidad in the West Indies. It was founded by slaves.

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