SLACKER'S CORNER

Author’s notes : In August 2009 I was in Jamaica again for the first time in 40 years. In many ways I fellt completely at home…comfortable…It was not just the pleasant countryside type environment that my soul responded to with deep echoed sigh but the way of the the elders and those most influenced by them…There are many intersting ‘gathering spots’ in the country and in the towns…            

There’s a little place in Jamaica, it’s in Danver’s Pen St Thomas

At the bottom of the house she built. Slacker’s corner she explicitly dubbed it.      

At the foot of the grey rise to her foundation in the soil where her days begun.

A quaint spot sporting ancient tradition.

A terminal where the men, women and children

Stop to rest, exchange chat and watch the range of a certain few people go by.

A point to swop mid morning greetings  and early evening pleasantries.  

She once sat there with her sister dear reminiscing on halcyon days agone

And dusting off pleasures in common and trophying anew sorority’s alliances  

Sit at this site and sooner or later all pass and you say how di doo to the lot…

From the wise and foolish to the familiar and the little less so, though not strange

Diligence and industriousness her constant watchwords not much time

Given to just sitting and at Slacker’s bench. But in truth that station many

Parts of the community glued and kept stitched as the old ways die daily.