Friday, March 12, 2010

" Between us there are now" - In Memoriam, Pat Charles 1937-2010. My first editor and publisher.


Between us there are now
so many dead familiar
so many thrusts of life made reap
and early harvest,
between us now, there are so many
vain regrets to founder on,
still too many needs
plunged in sand
lean clear as undecipherable tombsticks,
yet, Pat, now, 
as admonitions from those grave
and watching shadows,
now come, one more time,
this pulsing vigour of these
so many brand new lives
between us now.

(c) John Robert Lee.
Photograph of Derek Walcott and  other St. Lucian and Caribbean writers and theatre artists in Pat Charles house c. 1983. Pat is at far right, front row.