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Small Axe 6.1 (2002) 77-90



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Songster

Jennifer Rahim


Miss Ivy say she hear a singing trail through the church, sounding just like when Michael use to raise a few songs after the fishing done, and he by himself in Queen Penny bailing water in the shallows. His voice walking easy over the water and up the beach to where Mr. Oswald, who own the boat, and Sunil, the other fella that fish with them, checking the lines to see that every thing ready for the next trip.

Everybody in Victory Bay know that Michael could sing. The boy have voice oiled and smooth like the Birdie crooning only a fool breaks his own heart. That is how he get the name Songster. So when Miss Ivy swear is Michael spirit that pass through the gathering last Good Friday, during the time that Pastor Williams call the church to silence so memory could swell and speak love for the dead, people didn't object, and some, like Mother Francis and Mr. David even, nod their heads as a confirmation. Is true, Michael not resting.

Nobody jump just so and believe any word Miss Ivy bring and that is because when she make baptism and Pastor Williams and the appointed believers lay hands and pray down the Spirit, Miss Ivy like she decide, when she raise up from where she get slain, that she is chief anointed prophet and seer of the Calvary Hill Renewal Temple of the Word. She say she see heaven open up like how it open for St. Stephen, and a man in white robes stretch out a long golden rod and touch her tongue.

Since then every time you look sharp is like prophecy dropping from the sky free-sheet, and bad spirit following everybody. Then Pastor, who don't like to cross a soul and believe that everybody have to make their journey, decide to put his foot down when the [End Page 77] prophecy come from Miss Ivy that the Doc himself send a message that the country in a royal mess since he gone, and because he can't leave his people in need, he want everybody to pray to him for the party to rise again like in '56. Well, that is when Pastor put a ban on Miss Ivy prophesying.

Michael coulda sing anything, just call the tune and he gone clear with the lyrics, just like how kingfisher get carried away with their song when morning come, sweet too bad, and even the bed-sick get up and walk. So when Miss Ivy say his spirit still walking and that he singing, the church wasn't too quick to dismiss her word. Michael was a man who, when the mood take him, use to turn up in the middle of the service on a Sunday morning. He sit down quiet, quiet in the back listening to the lesson, not even joining in the amen-chorus when Pastor speak a truth that call for confirmation. Michael just sit there listening, with his eyes close, like he praying, although he is a man who make it clear to everybody that life have to live and you can't hide in no church. And is so Naomi plead with him not to talk so. That God don't sleep and that a man is more than the bread he labour for.

But everybody know Michael heart is gold and that is why he couldn't resist the church even though he stay by himself in the back. So he stay until Mother Crichlow raise a hymn he know, like The Lord Is My Shepherd, that she bring out in a kind of long elastic wail, sounding like pain and victory, conviction and plea all mix up in one. That is when out of nowhere Michael voice come sailing in, not drowning out nobody, but easing a kind of lightness and sweetness into the mournful stream of the congregation singing as if the hymn is a testimony to a faith they had to carry like a cross through their days. Singing a...

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