A BARBADIAN GEMSTONE

A BARBADIAN GEMSTONE

A lush and verdant niche of singular positioning on the Barbados east coast is where I spent a delightful
evening, entranced by a precious piece of property and its people.

Standing on a risen platform, gently graded upward, I was at one with the panorama that surrounded me and engaged with its sweep of nature. In quiet nascence, it spread a blanket of vegetal green over muted mounds of lightly sun-braised virgin land, touching, hesitantly, in all its innocence, the raging Atlantic, breeze-swept and strong, offering frantic, frothy embraces to the myriad shoreline coves, and then retreating, un-requited, to dissipate into the hazy distance, dazed, over the endless eastern horizon.

Meantime, every highlight of the Barbadian east coast bears witness, or tries to: from a long dormant lighthouse on a southern promontory to a pond of sheer green, northward.

There is, on this land, a place from where, most evenings, the family that holds stewardship of this gemstone, great-grands, grands, parents and children, have sat and gazed in thanks for all that there is here, and out there. For my part, there was a spell of silent exchange with the seen and the unseen, a slight tremble of the heart, as, in the fleeting moment I stood there, a presence bestirred me.

And, as if in grateful appreciation for this gift of nature, the place has been caringly gardened, generation by generation, into a graceful Eden of pleasing colors and subtle scents that still the senses into a state of quiet, calm contemplation.

Herbs, veggies, fruits and provisions, poultry, livestock and bounty from the sea, all ingredients for delightful meals, are indigenous to this locale. One way or another, they found their way to a delicious dinner that evening.

A scrumptious breadfruit salad led the way, soft, slightly saline, lightly infused with the juice of fresh limes. A dish of delicately floured flying fish followed, seared, sautéed and stewed. The fish, enticing in its light brown sauce, was presented in tandem with an appealing platter of slow-baked fowl from the yard, bone-loose tasty off the fork. A pretty pelau of rice and pigeon peas, accented with tail-bits of pig, complemented the eatings, brown sugared plantains and sweet potatoes at the side.

This hearty meal was accompanied by brandy of sugarcane, tempered with beer of ginger root, spurring free-flow conversation, inside, at the dining table, in the presence of cerished family heirlooms, and, outside, on the grass, beside a lovely row of hibiscus, in shades of red, pink and yellow, solving problems of the world, if only its people knew.

Yes; there is meaning and feeling in these here wonders

Vernon
11.04.09

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