The day I tracked through the mountains, I found no

rum-drinking, slur-making trees — nor bees. No slack.

Having observed the ways of trees — always nurturing —

I’ve graduated to studying trees and travelling bees.

The Baobab and Neem trees speak to my yearning

for ancestral rooting — that knowing. I suss out a

rootedness within me, my inheritance. This inner

core draws from the deep on “dry, pellucid days.”

Here, a storehouse enjoys perpetual renovation —

5,000 gallons of water. Capacity… an ample supply.

Trees I meet for the first time offer me years of

sustaining, antioxidant fruits. No hunger lingers.

I harvest seeds and oil enough to share. Abundance.

A travelling swarm of bees encourages me to fly

against logic. “I have no wings.” “That’s okay,” they say.

“Re-engineering is flight enough.”

I hear Kamau’s voice; he sings me towards Morris —

a man of plain talk. Rooted. Rootedness provokes my pen.

“Patwah ain’t nonsense words, no bad English!” I accept a challenge —

— unbend minds and reshape misplaced intellectual zeal.

Oh, where, or where is the root of our language? A choir sings.

No obfuscation — I’m a witness to spring. The next generation grows.

Creole oil is strategy, much like a bee’s lifetime work — a teaspoon

of honey is cure. I’m encouraged by twisting and reshaping of Creole.

History-making tongues create a hybrid home — releasing stress on

curves, converting sharp sounds into music. I taste the honeyed soul

of Creole at every turn. Perhaps, the root of Creole is found

in Calypso, Kaiso, Reggae, and clay-making — rootedness.

A Caribbean uprising. Creole takes hold, freeing minds.

Cut the confinement. No othering.

Kamau — one Creole tree bent on recovering language.

Morris — a journeyman, sharing Creole fruits, leaving seeds intact.

Time scatters us.