" 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.