El­speth Dun­can

The fer­ry lurched on huge waves as we left To­ba­go. The Bap­tist-look­ing woman sit­ting across from me said calm­ly, "To­ba­go wa­ters al­ways rough, yes."In the back­ground a man (who had been guz­zling pun­cheon in the aisle with his friends be­fore we sailed) clung tight­ly to a pole near the cafe­te­ria. A man near­by shout­ed to him, "Yuh holdin' on­to dat post like Jack War­nah!"

****

Sit­ting in the Gulf City Low­lands Mall. Smil­ing man in eth­nic garb comes and sells me a lam­i­nat­ed A4 sheet with a po­em called Love.

Man: "Yuh look­ing like a cul­tur­al la­dy. And yuh have spir­i­tu­al eyes.

(Gives me po­em, takes do­na­tion): "Stay lov­ing."

Here is the po­em:

LOVE

The love of God must dwell in the Heart of Hu­man­i­ty

Love thin­keth no Evil

Love does no evil to any­one, but on­ly Good

Love bears no Mal­ice, En­vy or Grudge

Love does not take ad­van­tage of oth­er's Weak­ness

To ad­van­tage its own self

Love Boasts not, nor puffs up with Pride.

Gen­tle not Rough, Help­ful not Lazy,

Love does not be­have in an un­rea­son­able man­ner.

Love is not eas­i­ly pro­voked, im­pa­tient or fret­ful.

Love re­joic­es not in oth­ers' mis­for­tunes

But re­joic­es in Truth.

Love seeketh the Well­be­ing of oth­ers al­so

And not on­ly Me, My­self and I.

Love is fair and just, not bi­ased or prej­u­diced.

Love does Vi­o­lence to no one.

Love does not lose con­trol of its Tem­per and do harm or in­jury

Or curse its fel­low­man and say it was a mis­take.

Love has self-con­trol.

Love does not en­cour­age any­one in wrong do­ing.

Beloved, if God so loved us

We ought to love one an­oth­er.

LOVE IS A CON­QUEROR

****

I was on the grounds of Heal­ing with Hors­es. A guest ap­peared hold­ing a small pup­py that had been hid­ing in the gar­den. Short­ly af­ter, she re­turned with an­oth­er pup. Both fe­male, seem­ing­ly aban­doned.Two chil­dren, there to ride hors­es, be­came fas­ci­nat­ed with the pups. The lit­tle boy be­gan "mas­sag­ing" them while his sis­ter stroked them.

At one point the boy yelled: "Ouch!"The girl turned to me and whis­pered: "He just got bit­ten on his pri­vates."

****

Be­hind a line of trees near the fish­ing de­pot at Fort Gran­by is a wood­en house with a wide ve­ran­dah. Up­on first see­ing it I won­dered who lived there. I found out ear­ly one morn­ing af­ter a beach walk, when I took a friend to see "this fan­tas­tic wood­en house."

The own­er, who was on the ve­ran­dah, beck­oned for us to en­ter, dipped in­side and resur­faced with three ba­nanas.

In­tro­duc­tions:

Carl. El­speth. Bar­bara.

As we munched on our ba­nanas, Carl told us that he had built his house and, as a boat­builder, had al­so trained most of the young men in the area to mas­ter the craft."They are like my sons. I am like a fa­ther to them and they look out for me." He laughed when asked what he does now that he no longer builds boats."The last per­son who asked me that, it took 30 min­utes to an­swer them. I do every­thing."

"Every­thing" in­clud­ed the CD he sub­se­quent­ly slipped in­to his CD play­er for us to hear. His lat­est re­lease: Christ­mas in Bar­rack­pore–a fes­tive parang mix cur­rent­ly en­joy­ing lo­cal air­play."Are you from Bar­rack­pore?""No. To­ba­go."So how come Christ­mas in Bar­rack­pore?""That's just what came." As one who doesn't be­lieve in the di­vid­ed no­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, of course he could be from To­ba­go and sing about Christ­mas in Bar­rack­pore."All of we is one."