Jamaican maroon warriors get support in the fight to save the cockpit mountains and their homes in the rainforest of central to mid-western Jamaica.
Author and poet E Lloyd Kelly recently penned a poem in support of the struggle to save the cockpit country from mining and other interests. Here is the poem.
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| Credits to, Creative Commons. |
Yes mi fren. Cock spur makkah gwine juck dem, right here in the
Cockpit Mountains.
Getting ready they are. Getting ready to knock fists, knocking it down
hole in the cockpit.
They thought that this was going to be easy, just go get it done
and come back quickly.
But it was for the first time ever, that night, that some were to
be going to the cockfight.
They would have been wondering in the car, hey! What are those bowls
really for?
But they were to find this out really soon when she was to fall
in upon the boom. Yes mi fren,
Zooming-on in, on the other end of the other boom, you know, the
sort which was not what they were there whoring for, to spoon. Wanted to hit
upon a big score, yes mister mistar, “just go on in and run them, locals, over,
and more,
Just like we would have done to them, oft times before.” But, they
were about to learn the new score.
Can't do us like you’ve done do those other ones on the floor.
We’d asked you to clearly define our borderlines, you came back
bringing to us, a protected area sign.
Which was to be falling inconveniently, within the known and well
established square yards of mine.
Thinking that we wouldn't even hear you before the sign, you know,
before the machines done come and clear us out, yeah, that would be us, all of
us, like, like clear us out of their guts bus, but beware. Your ears are tough,
so you couldn't hear us it would seem, fair? Fair. We’ll give you that square,
in a dream. But, as for them, the other men. Those pimps were newbies, new to
these sorts of show biz.
They did not know, kidz. No, they did not really know about it, about
what goes on down there in the cockpit.
Not to worry though, somebody is about to know. The game is on,
the roosters are in game mode plan.
All holes are corked and plugged up, and money pot done scrubbed fast,
and bugs zapped.
Let's go. Jack as is and cubs, monkeys, and clowns.
Cockpit mouth was about to kill cockpit stout, yes man. Cockpit cockspur
mackah gwine juck somebody's cockatrice.
Way up there in the range of those rear-end mountainous lattices.
So, bring it on, bring in your best legs to bust a dance.
We've got something cooking up for you, the bell-a-gut pot is
simmering the stew, your madda woman knows just what to do, to keep the family
fed and get them sent to bed-down in a place called content town, as said, now.
Sleep tight, and have a good night.
But, she was to wipe the smile and turn to selling more unrefined
snakes oil, upon the already batched up plan, and the schemes done spoiled,
which they would have hatched up upon and filing files and was to bring it on
in. This was only the entry mile in, they were to further wipe that smiling,
our troops were ready and rearing to go. Just as troops had done gone and done,
oft times before, but, about that, they did not know.
So, come on in, come join us and dig in into this steaming skin,
the thing which we’ve got here cooking.
“What's on the menu?” He was to ask, not too much to do, just a
little chicken stew. To take to task.
Well-seasoned and simmering.
With a dash of dried cockspur Makkah dust, a pinch of guinea hen
weed to trust, a head cup of rum, dried petal blossoms from floral cock comb mixed-in
in there, and yet more garden egg sprinkled with grated nutmeg and stirring, three
duppy pumpkins and nine cornmeal dumplings, thirteen sliced eggplant, to eat, then
beat the Kette drum around the boiling pot, and chant, the feat.
Freetown is not that free for none, so that everyone can just come
and see, and slice off a portion to go down with the cup of gang-up-on-dem-JAH,
tea.
Comical stooges wants to drill strange holes throughout the
conical hills.
The very hills through which many a fools was to pursue preys,
which they could not quite see through still, and was to get themselves killed,
right there in paradise, on the hill. Nice.
Lying back-down on the ground dying, and looking back up at
chirping chattering black-billed amazon parrots, who would have sat there, upon
chieftain head top whom they could not see, and watched, watching as fools
walked fast into a trap laid out smart on the ancestors back pass, and in for
the attack. Now, know this fact.
We are not going to sit by passively while you plunder and spoil
the sacred endemic species, no, not that which the hands of my forefathers gave
me.
Your big missteps would have happened near Quickstep, where you'd
supposed that you have come to find your golden basket, yes, your basket of
lost treasures in the land of look behind you never, but the troop you were to
rally and send in into cave Valley, did make the worst mistakes on the boobie-trap
yet near to our own doorstep on the spot right there, at the gate.
And you would have lost the five barley lovely loaves, the lunch which
the mother-woman would have given to you near Martha-tick cove, nearer to the cave,
and the rest is history, as the story goes, but that part was not to be told,
it’s still a mystery, lying listlessly, at Minocal's glory hole. Our glory is in
that holy hole, not yours.
Turning now to see, you take our children away, and go put them out
there on display and get to boasting of the wonderful things which you have
done, and are still doing for them today. But answer me this single question,
right away, what were our children doing before you came along this way? Well
not one, here's another question for you to answer, and mix in with your plan.
What will they be doing after you are done done and gone, as it is written in
your plans? Aah, but sir…
Yes! I hear you, but sir, if you should open up this door, our land
would not be the same as before, a precedent would have been set for the
claimers to come on in, to claim and to get, and to score yet some more, and
spoil the land, and the people's good name, and more, much more, while dumping
their poison in, on our door, in the water main, and on everything, again. Now
tell me this, even this, what then will become of these very children? Whom you
are here loving so very much, and is hastening in to come plunder and spend? Now
take your dirty hands off of our children's pickiny dem, and gweh, I mean, go,
go away, please. And get thee lost, pleaser. Go see the poem on YouTube.
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