(In memory of Yarico, a young
Amerindian woman sold by her white lover,
Inkle, to a slave owner in Barbados)
Under a cold half-moon
you cross the road to gaze again
at your reflection in the nearby pond
“Where is my body?
“Where is my body?”
Have your gods failed you?
Can the ancient Tamosi Kabo-Tano
not hear your cries? The benevolent
Sigu not come to your help?
Once more you call to Allatseura
but she is Mother of moving waters
seas oceans
springs rivers
she will not come to this stagnant pool
where ducks sully the surface
and lilies have stopped growing.
Ah, Yarico! How could you know
your lithe, brown body was the colour
marked for conquest?
How could you know in those moments
of passion you were nothing to the ardent Inkle
but native, primitive, exotic cannibal
merchandise—never fully human
a woman worthy of love?
Now, here at Kendal*
your last sojourn in captivity
only this memento of you remains—
a small stone head hardly seen
among the tangled weeds
far from your coastland of fresh
breeze, azure seas and sky.
Only this head
that speaks of women
traded bartered
sold four centuries long
forever severed
from themselves.
*A small monument of a head representing
Yarico’s is placed near the entrance of
Kendal Plantation yard in the parish of St John, Barbados.