Sugarcane

Look, see those people in the fields standing with feet in so much trash. No doubt, they are thinking about the weekend cash as they do the sugarcane dance. They top each blade of grass with a lance. They are as busy as the bees. On the island they work for Arthur and me. Who are those people in the fields? They are the sugar-workers, and oh how they please as they swing and hurl their hands in the breeze and kiss the grasses with bended knees. Their voices are loud, but their throats are not hoarse. They sing too sweetly, but their hands might be coarse. What are the words to the tunes they sing? Do you know the lyrics to what they say? Are they singing calypso songs about Harding, and Carlisle Bay? But I say to you, that yearly they dance in every crop-over band, which brings foreign capital flowing to this our beautiful land.

© Paterika Hengreaves