The view from the edge

Just showered skin sheened and slick with fresh made sweat, sun doing its best to pull moisture into the air to make its thunderstorms. The taste of chocolate lingers, powering the swing of arms, of legs, forward and back the motive force that takes a body through time and space to some imagined destination.

Limbs thrum with the slight muscle shake of prolonged exertion; sweat rivulets, collects in dimples at the base of the spine overflowing sweet curve of flesh that flexes, full of power, and keeps on moving on.

Breath rasps, just a little, lungs clear of smoke for eight years bellow strongly, wheezing just a little round the fist sized circle shown on an X-ray a year ago. Some alien invader already once removed, now back; unwanted tenant that will stay, for eviction would mean blood and broken bones, flesh laid open far too deep. Not this time. Not this body.

The terrain shifts. The grass is harsher than the road, entwined with discarded thorns and rootlets to pierce the soles of unwary feet no matter how hardened and everywhere the scent of khus khus, vetiver. The oil of harmony that calms and soothes and still the restless mind. The edge is near.

The view has changed. Oh, Port St, Charles still sits, an elegant lagoon inviting the rich with their sheeted ships to port. An enclave closed to those who live here, dues for the year US$100K a tariff far too high for local consumption. The sea still stretches, turquoise, royal blue, steel grey, into the sky a marriage in the west that flames each sunset when there are no clouds. The beach is still ours, by law there are no private beaches here and access must be given. The fishing boats list lazily on their perch of empty petrol drums, just waiting to be drawn. The beach is silver-gold sunbleached and shining with reflected light, small green apples from the manchineel tree inviting the unwary to taste their poison, to blister skin and bring a colic, bearing death for the weak.

Across the road from Port St. Charles the earth is bare and dark. Twenty six acres bore the muscled push of bright yellow machines uprooting trees seeded before my birth. Progress carving its cold lines into green swathes that fell so easily. New development, more condos more marinas more for the overseas investor who will buy and not live here. Engaging in auctions that force the price of land beyond the pockets of sons and daughters of the soil coming of age or even those of us returning home to find our heritage turned to cash without a word, not even the offer of a first refusal. Roots carefully reserved no longer have a place to home to, may never have a patch of soil to stretch their tendrils in. No matter.

So the view from the cliff, the edge, foretells the future of the dispossessed within their own lands and people wonder why the bright smiles have faded giving way to violence and scowls. The natives are restless, without our land, without the promise of our continuity we, who were never nomads, become a rootless people without center paying rents that buy us shelter and no more; watching supermarket shelves all filled with foreign, high priced cans and packages beyond our means while local produce rots in the fields because the farmers cannot sell it to the stores.

My morning run has not lifted me this day. Even I, a piece of non-politically minded fluff, must put this into words that ring so sullen where I prefer the clear tone of crystal. But words are like feathers, like children's hand patting at a fire that rages. We do it to ourselves. We sell our lands and give ourselves away. And then we riot claiming progress has 'unfaired us' as we bajans say. And I, a bajan to the bone, flourish my feathers and pat my hands, even roll my body on the flames. I cannot win a battle that is not even fully acknowledged, but I am responsible and will take my stand where ever it may lead me.