Jamaica Train
We gazed as billowing sails appeared beyond the bay
Saw them lowered, then heard the anchor splash
Small boats putting out towards our shores
Men holding the iron sticks that spat fire
Our elders greeted them eager to conspire
Their right to trade passed on in tribal laws
Run ! Run ! We feared the strangers’ lash
Nobody sees those the strangers take away
Too late ! We turned to face our kinsmen’s spears
Our lives worth but a puncheon of kill-devil’s drink
Drunken elders looked on as we took our chains
Their vision blurred as they sealed our fate
Crammed within the hold we felt the strangers’ hate
Our lives spared by greed for ill-gotten gains
Cowering as the strangers cursed our stink
Huddled close together, soaked in sweat and tears
At last, land in sight, a longing to be free
We stand upon the deck, wait for the plank to fall
A scramble ! White strangers bind us hand to hand
Like cattle we are sold. No words are spoken.
Brother and sister flung apart, families broken
The weak brought out, upon a block do stand
Shaking with fear and dread as bidders call
The ship now empty of black ivory
Pressed tight within the cart as daylight ends
Shaken and bruised as we bump along the track
Then bundled out and through the tabby door
Morning comes and then we hear the Driver’s shout
Up and away to the fields; sun is out
To a world where the Overseer’s whip is law
Where slaves who listen to the leather crack
Toil in the fields until darkness descends
Back bending to break the soil with the hoe
Limbs wearied and bodies broken for Columbus’ grass
Women and children moving slowly through the fields
Each small stalk a symbol of a Master’s greed
Beneath the blistering sun burning souls will bleed
Whips raised and ready for the slave that yields
To the torture of his work beside the marsh
Selfish owners waiting for the cane to grow
The autumn drought a signal to set fields alight
Tabby cabins enveloped in clouds of smoke
Sharp-ground cane knives slowly slashing
Be wary, careless strokes can lead to harm
Look sharp and be sure to wear a charm
Work too slow and feel the Overseer’s lashing
Children, with legs swollen from poison oak,
Scratching and aggravating plight
Bundles of cane stacked beside the track
Hauled by docile donkeys towards the mill
Through marshes where mosquitoes swarm
And cottonmouths in hiding wait to strike
Lurking in the murky waters of the dyke
With their disguise the sleeping alligator’s form
High overhead the eagle’s voice is shrill
Two mules circle near McCullum’s stack
There Moses and Elias feed stalk to the grinding wheel
Juices slowly seeping out as iron pans are filled
On Pelican Island Flynn’s new mill is hissing steam
Hungry iron rollers spin and stalks are crushed
Slaves feed its appetite and cough out dust
Kettles beneath the rollers gather the syrup stream
Sweat pouring off bodies as cane is milled
Scarred and scalded arms have yet to heal
Boiling kettles bubbling with the white man’s food
Crystals forming as the liquid starts to cool
What’s left we’ll use to make kill-devil’s brew
And Africa seems so far from Jamaica’s train
The mill, now silent, rusting from the years of rain
Beneath the ground so many lie who paid their due
No more are hogsheads of sugar carried by the servile mule
But I hear the songs of Underground as I stand and brood.
Copyright: David Hopcroft April 2007
A puncheon is about 200 gallons
Kill-devils drink = rum
Park Bench Tales and other writings 