Xaymaca
This is a poem I wrote just before moving back home to Jamaica from New York. The title, Xaymaca, is the Arawak name for Jamaica, which means åland of wood and water.
I'm going home
Words, like country schoolgirls
Come skipping, giggling
Lips laughing
That twinkle in her eye
Junkanoo dancing
Back a yard
Pot a-boil
Fire leaping, licking iron
I'm going home
Heart soaring like
John Crow over
Blue Mountained mother
Soul and spirit
Deep blue diving
Body sea-surrounded
Salt and dirt
Wood and water
I'm going home.
Toniann Read
St. James, Jamaica
(Present Time No. 110, January 1998)
Last modified: 2019-05-02 14:41:35+00