Poems

How long Melissa?

How long Melissa will you take just to make our day bad?

Making adults miserable and making children sad.

How long Melissa will you take just to make us lose our home?

Making people, mostly children so scared to the bone.

How long Melissa will you take to make trees uproot or fall?

A lot of people thought there would be nothing left at all.

How long Melissa will you take to receive people’s lives?

Making families devastated and making kids cry

How long Melissa will you take to give people cuts?

I feel they wanna deal with you but they don’t have the guts.

How long Melissa will you take to make schools lock down?

We just need to thank God she didn’t damage all the schools in town.

How long Melissa will you take to pass over Jamaica?

You are passing so slowly some think you are gonna stay forever.

When you leave, people would have to fix roofs, floors and walls

It probably would have been better if you never came at all.

– Joanna Parchment

After Melissa left

After Melissa left

I fetched the broom to sweep

away the residue of her wrath –

Last night

She kicked and screamed,

ripped and slashed

to her heart’s content,

Like a demon on a rampage,

sparing none.

The morning woke

with a start, gaping –

Shellshocked at the magnitude of her

wanton doings – her creation of rubble.

She had promised

to come visit my house,

but I did not believe.

– Rohan Facey

All Hands on Deck: Jamaica’s Cry

Brothers, sisters, scattered like sea wind,

soil still clings to my veins.

My pen once mapped escape routes;

tonight it trembles for home.

All hands on deck.

Melissa spoke in mud and mourning.

Roads sank. Classrooms hushed.

Mothers lifted silt-soaked photos

and whispered, “We still breathe.”

All hands on deck.

Doctors, nurses, engineers abroad,

your island remembers your name.

Carpenters, welders, mechanics,

hands that built elsewhere,

build here now.

All hands on deck.

Roofs gone, poles bent,

but the heart of Jamaica beats on.

Come with bodies or barrels,

with prayer or pay cheque,

send tools, time, hope.

All hands on deck.

Share knowledge like ripe mango:

sweet, free, overflowing.

No pity. Only purpose.

All hands on deck.

Restore. Rebuild. Renew.

Light the dark.

Raise walls that outlast the wind.

Lay foundation deeper than any flood.

All hands on deck.

Children of countless storms,

faith in our marrow, rhythm in our chest

even the strongest spine needs hands beside it.

All hands on deck.

Jamaica is not lost.

She calls through salt and sunrise.

We answer with work, faith, fire.

All hands on deck.

All hearts on fire.

– Deidre S. Powell