The Interior
By Rayon Lennon
[Clarendon, Jamaica]
[“We are driving to the interior.”—Elizabeth Bishop, “Arrival at Santos”]
The mountains loom
Large like questions
About poverty. Wages
Low. Crime, high,
Our driver narrates.
The roads wear
Potholes like war
Wounds. They narrow
And wiggle into
A world of trees.
Unfinished
Cement homes
Dot the unruly
Greenery. Dancehall
Music medicates
A square. A Rasta
Hawks canes
And peeled
Oranges before
A crumbling
Colorful stall.
Star-apples purple
In the sun’s
Eye. Men make
A villa from scratch
By whipping up
Cement from
Gravel. They shovel
It into buckets
And pitch them up
To each other.
They work
Faster than
Machines until
Their arms become
Steel, until their
Masculinity is free
Of “femininity.” The sky’s
The limit with a bush
Of clouds. The sea’s
Voice is missing,
But a gentle wind
Strums the canes.
Bush women
Flower the roads.
Sunrise farmers
Drink away bar shops
At noon. The hills line
The background
Like a choir. Bauxite
Men pinch a break from
Squeezing profit
From the land
To menace
The squares,
Clogging bars,
Streets with idle
Moaning trucks. Graves
Stamp the land. Taxis
Overtake taxis
Like NASCAR. A washed
Away bridge is still
Missing. Toddlers cross
A raging river on rocks.
The bauxite companies
Wound the hills
And leave them
To bleed out. Uniformed
Students skip
Home from schools.
Poverty is flower-framed,
Expatriate mansions
Overshadowing zinc
Huts. “Could this be
Love?” Bob Marley
Wails. We stop to snack
In Brown’s Town,
A red-earth town on a peak
Dipping into the market
Heart of a valley. I knock
My head on a too-low
Bathroom door frame.
And for a minute I forget
I’m finding myself
Here in the bitter
Beauty of sun-powered
Women with braided
Hair, rainbow
Buildings, markets
Of knock off clothes
And shoes; yams,
Oranges, June
Plums, conscious music
Spreading peace over
The triggering smell
Of smoking jerk
Grills. Cave Valley
Is baptized in floods
Every few weeks, the rivers
Are resting now. James
Hill is like a long massage
With a sad ending:
The restless shop
clerk pulling a minimum
wage of 6200 Jamaican
Dollars or 62 U.S. per
Week. The weather-
Beaten houses
In my childhood
Hometown have lost
Their colors. My retired,
Yellow third-grade
Teacher observes
That I used to be
Browner. The grass
Cannot be tamed
By the patient
Goats and slothful
Cows whose expanding
Sad eyes tell us
Our masters will be
Our killers.
The scarred bridge
Is now bandaged,
The pool below
Too shallow to plunge
In. The gully rambles
Through the taxi-filled
Square. Music, God,
Football and track
Medicate the country.
A drizzle brightens
The rainbow churches.
Homeless Mongrels
Mill around
Like the unemployed.
The post office is
Dead and buried
In reeds. The All Age
School is now a primary
School with flushing
Toilets next to ancient
Fragrant outhouses.
The teachers cannot
Strike students anymore
The way Miss Dee
Whipped the senses
From bro when he was
On the cusp of grasping
How colonialism is
Resurrected in the stick
Of a freed 20th Century
Godly lady who strikes
Self-esteem from
Her pupil. The pigs
In the prison pig
Pen don’t scream
Anymore. The pigeons
Don’t wing back
To their guard-like
Owners. The Ugli
Trees are now
Cane fields. Wasps
Know who to sting,
The child giving back
Innocence after hearing
About a poor man chopped
To hell by community
Men for stealing
Livestock. The Minho
River is still
A bully when it rains,
Washing away lives.
The great house
Of the white English
Family is still standing,
Workers worrying around
Like fire ants. Banana trees
Everywhere bent in prayer.
About the author:
Rayon Lennon was born in rural Jamaica; he moved to New Haven County, CT, when he was 13. He currently resides in New Haven. He holds a B.A. in English with a concentration in Creative Writing from Southern Connecticut State University. He holds a master’s degree in Social Work and works as a Psychotherapist. His work has been published widely in various literary magazines, including, The Main Street Rag, StepAway Magazine, Folio, The Connecticut River Review, The African American Review, Noctua Review, Indianapolis Review, The Connecticut Review, Callaloo, and Rattle. His poems have won numerous poetry awards, including the 2017 Rattle Poetry Prize contest for his poem “Heard”; his poems have been nominated for the Best of the Net anthology and the Pushcart Prize. He won the Folio Poetry Contest for three consecutive years--2007, 2008, and 2009. He won the Noctua Review Poetry Contest in 2014 and 2015. He also won Rattle’s Poets Respond contest in 2015 and 2019. His first book of poems, Barrel Children, was released in March 2016, by Main Street Rag Publishing Company. Barrel Children was a finalist for the 2017 Connecticut Book Award for best poetry book. Rayon is working on a new book of poems.
