An Unassuming Love: Black Memory, a Traveloguer, and Cricket

By Steinberg Henry

One autumn morning I am led to Anthurium, a journal published by the University of Miamis Department of English, Coral Gables. Of the four essays I decide to listen to, one by M NourbeSe Philip titled A Travelogue of Sorts: Trafficking in Silence and Erasure catches my attention. As the author observes how museums in and around London marked the two hundredth anniversary of the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, she comes upon a shrine from which she archaeologizes a familiar West Indian artifacta cocoyea broom. From then on the passionate narrative erupts in and for me: swept interconnected yards, yard cricket pitches, a cricket match between Bangladesh and West Indies against Dominicas fascinating landscape, West Indian persistent match losses, Australian strategies, and the rise of India, Sri Lanka, South Africa, and some ninety-five associate and affiliate cricketing countries. By way of David Rudders calypso, An Unassuming Love finds Haitis deep hurt in the games of life and does not separate them from West Indian cricket losses. Universally, were shifting, it suggests. Its a story for culture leaders, keepers of memory banks, and calypso markers; sportspersons, cricketers, and cricket administrators globally; and students and teachers of social history, sociology, social studies, and psychology. Come on, take it!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462883974

Steinberg Henry

Steinberg Henry is originally from Waitukubuli, present-day Dominica. Currently, he resides just outside Atlanta, a city known for its music history. He is father, passionate communicologist drawn to entertainment education, healing arts and philosophy. By dint of a visual difference, he’s fast becoming advocate for persons with disabilities. Calypso Drift is his third work, the other two being As She Returns (2009 -- second edition due in 2014) and An Unassuming Love (2011). Cover Concept: Steinberg Henry Photograph: Greg John Baptiste Sketches: Darius Ettiene Sketch Management: G Seteira Henry & Z Colberg Henry

Book preview

Copyright © 2011 by Steinberg Henry.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011909435

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4628-8396-7

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4628-8395-0

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4628-8397-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

96833

For Zev and Imran

For Xavier, Christopher, and Ihkwon

For Carla, whose Granny took her to every cricket match

For all those Dominican cricketers who’ve played and will play for the West Indies. To the fellas who, after the victories, roasted fifteen breadfruits, a portion of smoked-herring, and prepared a bomm of skwash (a measured blend of water, sugar and lime juice). And yes, to our Haitian brothers and sisters. The roots are many and they are strong!

Chapters

Chapter 1

The Maze, Memory Artifacts, and Stringed Languaging

Chapter 2

Stone Mountain, Coast to Coast AM, My Illegal Legal Alien Sister

Chapter 3

Aum/OM in Freezing Ice, Ras Shorti, Cocoa, Ghanaian Boy

Chapter 4

Favorite Island Florist

Chapter 5

Geological Paradise, Neighbors, Lingua Koubouyon, Gordon Henderson, Hucksters

Chapter 6

Anthurium’s Essays, David Scott: Archaeology of Black Memory

Chapter 7

Barak Black Eagle, Arrowhead Woman, The Archaeological Sensibility, Trafficking Silence

Chapter 8

UN and Abolition of Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, M NourbeSe Philip Records London, Nairobi Memory

Chapter 9

Tissued Geography: The Yard and Cocoyea Broom, Good Friday: Our First Tour Guide, The Fowl Analogy, Calabash

Chapter 10

Narrative from Holland, Inclair’s Plant, Trudy Scott-Prevost: Isle of Longevity, Gabrielle Le Roux’s Exhibition, dominicandiaspora.com, dominicasource.com, Loaded Sublinguals

Chapter 11

Enamel Cup, The Safe, Pottery

Chapter 12

Harry Belafonte and Calypso, Stephen Stuempfle on Percussion, Gordon Rohlehr and Cricket, Grayson Shillingford et. al

Chapter 13

Taj Mahal Hotel on Fire, Sri Lanka’s Cricket Team Ambushed, Tim Hector, Unearthing Mutual Memory

Chapter 14

Bangladesh as Context, A Dominica Panel on Cricket, Leandra Lander, Nathalie Murphy

Chapter 15

Bangladesh versus West Indies

Chapter 16

Barry Wilkinson Speaks with Dominica’s Prime Minister, The Shane Shillingford Matter, Bangladesh in My Yard

Chapter 17

West Indies versus Bangladesh

Chapter 18

Dr. Donald Peters, David Hinds, Tim Hector

Chapter 19

Passing It on: Dominica’s Under-fifteen Trained, Adam Sanford

Chapter 20

Our Cricketing Crisis, Julien Hunte, Mark Pouchet, Patterson Recommendations

Chapter 21

West Indies versus Pakistan in South Africa, U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, Sri Lanka’s Women Cricket Team, UN: Prejudices and Racism

Chapter 22

Tony Becker’s Vigilance Re ICC, Herbbie Miller: Silencing Our Drums, UN Memorial and General Assembly

Chapter 23

UN Beats Drum, Ras Mo, Ojibwe People: Spirits of Cedar and Other Tree Moments

Chapter 24

Australia’s New Generation Pace Attack, Mutual Astrology, Adelaide 2010, Bravo’s 104,

Chapter 25

Kemar Roach Disturbs Ricky Ponting, ABC Commentators, We Don’t Know How to Hunt and Kill

Chapter 26

The Great Meeting, Redeeming a History of Loss, CLR James, Grace among Our People, Musing with Galatians

Chapter 27

France and Haiti, Barbadian Pastor Vincent Wood and Pat Robertson, Naomi Klein and Disaster Capitalism, Beyoncé Knowles and Savannah Cricket, Dr. Hilary Beckles, Rex Nettleford

Chapter 28

Indirect Reflections on Nettleford’s Extract

Chapter 29

Caribbean Studies Association UWI Panel, Dr. Ernest Hilaire, West Indian Cricket Associations and Boards

Chapter 30

Naming the Stands: Dominica’s Windsor Park Stadium, Against South Africa: Losing and No Turning Back,

Chapter 31

France Commemorates Too, Levi-Strauss and Melville Herskovits, David Rudder’s Haiti, West Indies Women Cricket Team

Chapter 32

Return of the Maze, Cholera

Chapter 33

Shane Shillingford

Chapter 34

The International Cricket Council (ICC), Hallelujah

Chapter 35

Death of an Era, Lessons from Our Ancestors in History: Patience in Transitions, A Dark Plexus

Chapter 36

Mazed Unfamiliars: Haiti, North African Rumors and Quakes, Sri Lanka and India

Chapter 37

North Africa, The East in the Middle, Haiti, West Indies Beat Bangladesh, Japan

Chapter 38

Sri Lanka and India

Chapter 39

Michel Sweet Micky Martelly, Africa’s Lifting

Chapter 40

Japan, UN 2011: Power of Human Spirit, My Tendentious Leap

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Editor Patricia Saunders and the people at Anthurium for creating such a magnificent journal. Thanks to Stephen Stuempfle and Gordon Rohlehr for their excellent essays. How encouraging was M NourbeSe Philip when she told me she loved what I was doing, and to David Scott who simply asked to say it came from their intellect. Glenna Williams read the first draft and stirred my writing passion by saying that she came to love cricket or at the very least found some joy in reading about it in such an unassuming manner. Dominican cricket commentator Ossie Lewis read selected sections of the text to make sure I was correct with and close to the language, names, and scores. His changes were subtle and appropriate. Dominica’s one-time ambassador to the United Nations Crispin Gregoire sent me wonderful nuggets of information. Thanks to my wife Jeanne, daughter Roberta, sister Pearl, and son Zev. Much love for the support of Brian Francis, Rossetti Rabess, Avondale Jolly, Tony Benoit and Nadine Edmond. Glendora, our daughter and therapist, did the back-cover photograph. The spirit of the living God dwells with us even to this moment, and for this we give thanks!

OTHER PARTICULARS

This narrative took off after I read essays and an interview appearing in Anthurium, a Caribbean studies journal, vol. 6, issue 1 (Spring 2008, under the theme On the Archaeologies of Black Memory). Anthurium is published by the Department of English, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida.

All names and sources drawn from others and appearing in my project added life to the narrative. When I used quotations at length, it was because the extract was intelligent and well-written, relevant, and energetic. I really wanted the reader to appreciate our mode of storytelling and to understand that sometimes, we need use these quality quotes to enhance a Caribbean archive and of course, inform and remind our readers. It was not my intention to take anyone’s work, but on the contrary, to bring its measure, weight, and proportion into fresh light to allow for an emerging interpretation.

I speak here of the contributors to Anthurium, Tony Becker (Jamaica Gleaner), David Hinds (Caribbean World News), the United Nations Department of Public Information, Sunlen Miller (ABC News), Julien Hunte, Dr. Hilary Beckles, Heather Robinson, Mark Pouchet (Trinidad Express), Krishan Francis et. al (Associated Press: (Colombo, Lahore, Islamabad), Matthias Williams (Reuters, New Delhi), A Virtual Dominica, Marie Turner Wright, Scott Baldauf (Christian Science Monitor), Firoze Manji (Pambazuka News, South Africa), Herbbie Miller (Jamaica Observer), Nicolas Rossier (Huffington Post), Herbert Wagner (North-Western Wisconsin), Peter Della Penna (Sports, ESPN), Peter Richards (CMC News), Ancestral Spirits of CLR James, Tim Hector, and Rex Nettleford.

If in this text names are ever spelt wrongly—particularly names of non-West Indian cricketers—I apologize.

1

It’s amazing. Who does that? Who eats amazing? How does amazing taste? Wow. Think of it. A maze in G for dinner. You mean that tasty string of green beans. Amazing, isn’t it? Then what is it, if amazing, isn’t it? Amazing is a place to start. Amazing is a place? Is it a place mazed with mazes? Is it forest trees? What else do forests contain? Déjà vu all over again? All over again? What déjà? And, my dear sister, what did you view? Was it still an amazing déjà vu by the time you got to see it? Should I say eat it?

How the mountainside changes depending on who climbs it. Amazing boggles. I wanted to say or write the mind after boggles, but where else does it happen? In the eyes? In the eyes that we use to vu déjà, to vu those cars as they pass by, to lose view of their mufflers, numbers, lights, as they like us move on flat? Just thought I’d take off using this mazed trope, whatever this means. Sounds to me like stringing sounds, pieces of rope, bits of ideas, remains to form traces of a whole or just trying to put these words in order that they make sense to you and I. How dangerously in love, when the eye constructs before you.

Amazing too, what is found in the maze when out of childhood zeal, a search begins in completeness on one of those lay-yourself-down-to-look-into kind of moments when I lotus on a petal. I could feel clouds forming its texture, its fragility yet, thinking it supported me, gave me a writing ecstasy. A maze of sunlight is hidden in its stalk, its orange, its red, white, blue, a fragrance oozing from its center like a tender-tissued cocoon, slightly opened. Its seed must have died to burst forth, fifth, seventh like this flame budding, trembling first then stretching upward as energy rose from its fire’s inner core. Its edges were cut in random ins and outs as if along a coast, and its redder parts descended from its middle-top, plunging. Just sitting there lotused in full, naked moonlight, bliss ascended in pulses. Hmmm.

Don’t we all pulsate? Don’t we all become archaeologists one time or another, etymologizing, sifting memories, moving shapes, objects, papers, tools, threads, books, basement contents, breath, and to be sure they’re full of wonder when we hear, see, find them—those blissful moments, newspaper clippings, that old shingled-building, that house vine, this broken concrete step, a flowerpot, a gray, loose wire, blue-black remains of a fountain pen, an unhinged gate, pieces of louvre glass, remains of a shredded broom, old brushes, combs, pins, ties, dresses too short, jeans out of style, cups chipped, an aging bridge seen from the window, thousands, must be hundreds of thousands of them now, places they take us—things we can find when on a consistent search.

We who clean up know beauty in finds—a handwritten letter, a white and black photograph stamped behind, a piece of grandma’s jewelry, that small book read over and over again, your comfortable worn-out shoes, an overplayed TDK cassette, a historic government document, its ink holding on to paper, a girlfriend’s wedding invitation, your favorite painting unimportant to others, a fine piece of linen, birthday and Christmas cards, remains of that aromatic perfume, a high school certificate. They conjure memory and it is the ease with which thoughts of where I was, who was there, what was the occasion arise swift, lucid. They even draw smiles. Imagine blood’s chemistry’s flow.

You think as a result of that precious memory firing; if you can say you think, since the thought runs up, some say out of your heart. It’s voiced sufficiently that I may hear. It flies close enough to feel its feathers, smell its animal, its treey life, its existence among herbs, plants, shrubs, pulsating rhythmically with mazes of energy. Memory burgeons from looking at a torn letter, a calligraphic one, one straight, another with threads of beauty, curved with intentionality. They come from nowhere we say; but I tell you they have a big, big house. Memories? Even words remember each other! How they know each other’s purpose! I separate them here, and yet they call out to each other from their close settlement windows.

Even when memory is of London while I write in Stone Mountain, Georgia, USA, they still—the words—stand together, one before or after another in line longing to touch, but wanting it privately, not here, not here on paper. Where therefore, is the house of this issuing thought located? In a private place? In camera? Could you imagine words kissing words with red tongues? Come on darling, you’re warm—your kiss is wet. Did you clean your tongue with honey? This tu’s kissing t and t kissing u. Wow. They kiss yet stand apart—the unity of lovers.

Hi stone, this is water and my cousin limestone. Or my name is y and I cannot wait to hold o and u—to stand next to them, breathe them, magnetize them, wet them or ask do I know you. Remember me? How can I know what you remember if you do not speak, sing, paint, write, dance?

We can find and say many things in processes of memorizing, and to find a memory that is not in an object is usually taken for granted, but it’s an achievement; well at least in these times of disappearances, amnesia, sleeplessness, and loneliness. Clearly, to really find essence, one has to seek with focus and these days I add, with a sense of joy. Things surprise, are found, encountered, slip away along the searching way. Even when the journey is inward, a plethora of emotions mark an entrance, a midpoint, a third and fourth concentric circle, a release, a place of silence displaced by another, then another wave.

2

Let me tell you my specificity here in Stone Mountain, Georgia. I’m considered a legal alien. I’m from beyond space and legal. I travel from place to place using a craft that moves from land to elevations above the land it left, to find another place below that it descends to unloading. I’m an alien and I’m legal. I travelled across and over water over a ball spinning in the sky to get to another place on that same ball, spinning in the sky. From this specificity, I listen to transmissions from that sky, those familiar ones and those too silent for the unlistening.

This is America where people speak loud in cities of noise. This is Stone Mountain where Atlanta’s Total News begins at five in the afternoon, and for fifteen minutes I hear crashes, lootings, burglaries, killings, stabbings, kidnappings and I, I turn away from television in order to pay respect to approaching winter and its dark command. This is Stone Mountain, and in addition to loving its presentation of a fall and winter relationship, the riot of colors and hundreds of birds gathering, I seek beyond in this space for transmission. Tell you seriously out of this unpredictable weather impression, I always seek out media taking me to the heart of that original American project—to reach over distance.

I love Coast to Coast AM. Not only does it reach with religious zeal over distance to influence and surely entertain intellect and soul, it is imaginative radio broadcasting out of California, Minneapolis, the Philippines, Texas—it just moves from desert to, well I hope, space around, below and above Earth. It reaches me in Stone Mountain. On Coast to Coast AM, they speak about aliens like me, save that I’m legal. They probe thought about grays, UFOs, alien abductions, earthquakes—they do not say in diverse places—and global warming. It’s a broadcast house wherein science, technology, geology, archaeology, astrology, astronomy, physics, mind/body medicine, and Egyptology are spun out into the ether, into cyber.

Coast to Coast AM imagines others listening, you know, those not like us humans. In this case, we’re all humans—equal at that—when another is out there. Little do we know, we’re out there, out here too. We need a bit of confidence to calibrate our communication instruments; they may not hear as we know it. They may marvel that our water, our oceans do not fall and be baffled by the truth that we do not know: we keep it together by just being in it! This is Stone Mountain, my specificity wherein sirens blare in the sky chasing a man of some color still on this ball in the sky. Yes, I am on a living round ball of water and land in the sky.

Where men live, there are laws; yet men of one color hate men of another color on this multicolored ball spinning in the sky with no support, save its neighbors in the distance, their rings chanting harmoniously, all intricately interconnected with no visible cords yet balanced. In the neighboring state of Alabama sits the sprawl of the University of Alabama at Huntsville where space travelers visit, lecture, tell their gut stories, enchant, and are noticeably awed by memory of blue, green, white beauty in the sky. They saw sets and risings, sun-burnt evenings, bursts of violets, indigos, blues, greens, yellows, oranges, and reds. They came back to tell us we’re not alone, and to warn us that billions like us live on this wonder they saw from their skies. They might not have mused this far, to remind us that the Pacific and Atlantic are vast interconnected oceans where deep calls to deep.

In truth, we’re in flight in the sky, moving yet appearing to be stationary. The depth of an ocean is still yet superabundant in energy—the search, the find. For those who have seen us from a distance; their hearts beat into compassion mode, the electrocardiogram entertained a refreshing fractal. They are known to have said that from that point in vastness with no support, it is incomprehensible why humans go to war, capture and kill others, destroy oceans and rivers, plant and animal life, even the ozone pulp surrounding this marvelous bean that is Earth.

Somewhere on this Earth in the sky, I am seated in a house, pressing squares, fingers of blood, bone, prints that are mine and mine alone. I am an alien and I’m legal. And what of the illegal legal alien; those who are legal aliens but not yet resident, having not flown from their specific spot on this ball to a place of their choosing, or one determined, determined by circumstances, finances, family, or the availability of jobs, agreeable weather and proximity to their land of origin?

She who brought this to my attention—the illegal legal alien status matter—is beloved. She will come when she’s ready, and I can’t wait to hear and see her coming. Soon, she will cease being an illegal legal alien and become familiar with sunshine on a cold day, nostalgia, dreaming in city streets, a longing for her island market, its fruit, its nongenetically modified vegetable, its nonprocessed foods. She will long to taste. And yet, from the center in her bone, she’ll find life, courage, and power to move. Fortunately, she’ll not be the only one binding industry to opportunity.

Many like her, and rightly so, will strive to be citizens to receive the benefits from this great nation-state spinning in the sky. They’ll be fully legal when they’ve landed, begun work, and pay taxes. And even when they do not work or pay taxes, they will have the card and show it at ports of entry and exit, show it at banks before they can put it away and have it replaced by a driver’s license, an identification card. Here, you must have a laminated document identifying you, having your picture, fingerprint, profile, number. It is here you graduate from quality to quantity to measured form. It is here values slip, identity cracks to let in the light of difference and opposition, transformation. It is here that the self knows a revolution and its commodification. It is here that men and women recommend making deals with the devil. It is here that religiosity’s bonds of ritual are traded for late sleep-ins, brunches, and maturing justifications.

Good mornings vanish. Neighbors are not visible. This is not an African city where women on the bus, chat, talk, and laugh. This is silence, a moment too, to record the self, its heart beating, its voice, its remembrances, its erasures. Communication reveals another of its dimensions—the intrapersonal. It’s not extraterrestrial. It descends into the belly, finds the breathing to slow it as traffic rages, trains rumble in screeching. Home’s silence is gone. The old missive, her love for calligraphy has atrophied. Many like her will say, I now use the Internet. I send quick and short notes. I messenger too and I do it live with images, voice, and text. This is my new communication; me, an illegal legal alien. I am becoming when I get here.

I am, knowing cul-de-sacs, trains, buses, stops, points of embarkation far, far from my accustomed streets, my own means of transportation, my garden, my yard, my temperature. I am a legal alien. I’ve arrived. I am an illegal legal alien. I have not yet arrived. Whichever you are, you are connected in the net of interrelations depicting world travel, human intentions, and dreams of novelty. I am connected to you now, my sensual love. This is the preamble to my travelogue that all men and women are created equal travelers.

3

The day of this search when finds became visible wasn’t a wet one. Must’ve been amazingly moist, but I am yet to feel a moist day. Think it was sunny, but cold. Now, now imagine this for me—sunny but cold. Should really write sunny and cold uniting opposites. It’s still clear to me, stepping out that day, under sunny skies—hearing the weather report—only to experience a temperature shock of my life. Needed to remember the color of that day, its streaking bones of branches, bared by wind, hardened in freezing