A Caribbean poem of warmth and colour to light up a Monday morning.
It’s by the prize-winning Guyanese-born John Agard, who came to Britain in 1977.
He is a popular children’s writer, has promoted Caribbean culture and poetry in schools with the Commonwealth Institute, was a writer-in-residence at London’s South Bank Centre, for the BBC with the Windrush Project, and at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.
Today’s choice comes from his Selected Poems, Alternative Anthem (Bloodaxe Books, 2009, £9.95).
RAINBOW
When you see
de rainbow
you know
God know
wha he doing –
one big smile
across the sky –
I tell you
God got style
the man got style
~
When you see
raincloud pass
and de rainbow
make a show
I tell you
is God doing
limbo
the man doing
limbo
~
But sometimes
you know
when I see
de rainbow
so full of glow
& curving
like she bearing child
I does want know
if God
ain’t a woman
~
If that is so
The woman got style
man she got style
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