Into Caribbean Cadence Of

 

The weather report suggested rain all day.  All I really did was regard the hourly icons. It was supposed to stop in the afternoon.  I hadn’t realized thought that what was driving through our hamlet was tropical storm Isaias.  The rain grew in intensity and by mid-morning, I could watch it fall in sheets of water that resembled waterfalls I’ve seen up close.  And the same yard that had me worried it was drying out yellow two days ago was now completely drenched. 

 

In the middle of it all my dad asked for my help on a move that he was helping someone with.  Could I bring the hand-truck in my garage over and we’d move this bed that was being delivered to a neighbor.  I’d all but given up finding the device which, in my mind, was red until I realized the blue hand truck  was right in the middle of the room, hidden behind the Christmas wreath that was hanging on it.  My wife thought I was crazy heading out in this weather but I loaded it up and made my way on. 

 

Large branches were down all along Route 208 and by the time I got to Main St. I’d seen my fourth fire truck with flashing lights, turning into a red light in an intersection, forcing everyone to accommodate them.  Rang my dad.  Is he really waiting outside in this rain like we suggested?  Exiting town on Thirty-two, to the north, a fair sized northern red oak had fallen in a parking lot.  A right on Henry Dubois Drive from Thirty-two and there were large branches down in every yard.  I tried another number and then he called me back and said they’d already solved it.  "We're all done.  Hope you didn’t come out.”

 

And all day, during tropical storm Isaias, I was reading the remarkable work by Eric Walrond: “Tropical Death.”  Walrond’s language is achingly bright and hot and marinated in Caribbean smells and West Indian diction.  And every time I slowed down to sound out what the text suggested I was rewarded with a masterful insight into Caribbean cadence of the 1930s.  On more than a few occasions I saw references to things I’d only ever heard in Jamaican popular song lyrics: “Donkey want water but you hol' him Joe.”  No.  Tenor Saw didn’t first sing that in 1985 on “Ring the Alarm,” and it isn’t Harry Belafonte’s 1957 reference either that is seminal, not if Walrond is quoting it in 1926.  Sharp, colorful like claret blood, and terrifyingly cruel and quick.   Walrond seems to release himself into this authenticity in a way that Claude McKay only dabbled with his mother-rhythms in trying to make sense of Harlem or Marsaille. (And now I’m listening to Tenor Saw and some Super Cat as well, which sound like a gate in an airport of time to other periods of my life.

 

 

 

Tuesday 08/04/20