My big brother and African mentor, LeRoy Clarke has gone on, and I should have written this before, days after the announcement of the end of his journey. But I couldn’t find the book it is based on when I wanted to, which seemed to be hiding as if to frustrate me, or else to give me more time for reflection on his mind, in the clutter of small books in my library.
Purpose and diligence eventually yielded its hiding place, and here I am writing this eulogy, for publication the day before Budget Day 2021-22, choosing his book ‘Taste of endless fruit–A selection of Love Poems and Drawings’. But I know he wouldn’t have minded since he saw our annual budgets as uninspired, boring, tawdry statements of prose disconnected from the spirits of the people whom he saw as fertile creatures of the fecund intercourse with Earth and so much more than economic beings.
I have read the book multiple times and the thing that impresses most, every single time I read it, is the abundance and brilliance of its metaphors, some of which I will introduce you to without commentary. At the end, I will reveal some of my favourites. But first, two things.
First, LeRoy, who never signed his poems ‘Leroy Clarke’ but as ‘LeRoy…’ or ‘Le Roy…’ preferred me–and all others, I suppose–to call him ‘Le Roi’ as in the French rendering of ‘The King’. Second, in my latest reading, I have discovered that he autographed the book to my elder daughter with the words ‘Candia, a rare flower of woman indeed. Stay precious.’ (Candia must have been with me when I visited.)
So now for some metaphors.
In the dedication, which is written to women only, including his Mammy–‘all enduring African women’–he declares, ‘I kneel, washed in your light’ and goes on to identify as ‘your Son’ but ‘the Brother, the Husband, the Warrior forever...your friend.’
The poems were written over the 1960s and 1970s. They do not carry titles and there are no page numbers so I cannot identify any. Every one of them is drawn so that they are not only textual but also visual; which means they have to be seen to be fully interpreted. They seem to be participating in a stream of self-discovery, self-propulsion and self-worth from the woman, and love and love-words for the woman. LeRoy’s love metaphors are more intellectual than they are sensuous and bold; and I am afraid they might sound dated to the generations born in the late 20th century and in this century. But read them for the imagery they conjure up as well as for the sheer beauty of the language. I use the slash (/) to separate verses.
‘Sunrise / as in the delicate triumph / of your name / to you / I want to be truthful / to be myself / to love you as my whistling / simply / to sing its dissyllable / I named you my queen.’
‘Your love is / a rare mountain flower / a waste in my dalliance.. / the way I treat you.’
‘I chased the dawn / to catch her on the leap of day / and there in the gloom / with the earliest bee and the humming bird / left not one leaf-lip-budding.’
‘So / in the gradual lengthening of shadows / we sank into the bosom of a light serene.. / lost from the most careful gaze / as if a heaven of oceans / had shut the rest of the world off ….’
‘.. and when we had ended / we lay blistered in sweet juices of fermenting fruit… / … soft blossoms whispering casually among a persuasion of children voices / descending on our bodies.’
‘I climb from your toes with the exhilaration of a Flame / kissing my way up seeking extinction / in the node that branched your thighs / two legends of a pure age.’
‘Shall I say more / I loved her over and over / we traversed a continent of new meaning.’
‘Kissed your breasts / with lips that were a potter’s hands to reshape their ancient gold / Held her head in my palms / as a sun among trees / I whispered to God / O season’s rebirth / Taste of endless fruit / Be mine.’
It is at these instances / when your feminine doubts perfume / into a blossom of charms / when circumstances that are absurd / to singularness / of our private world are asleep.’
‘Woman / I take to myself / the elysium of your black sleep / My seed / will emanate the ancestral / Womb / to thrive in the sunshine of your nakedness / forever…’
‘Woman.. / The tall mango tree that fills the yard of my longing … / Please take me / Take me / as you would a boy in search of the ripest fruit / among your leaves… / Take me.’
‘Woman of gazelle-grace and body / smooth breadfruit trees breasting full November fruit / preserve your sap for the heat / of my blade / I bring you a thousand kiss-kee-dees / for your hair.’
‘Your lips are / sweetest cherries / turned clay-red … / Make me / the only taster… / fill me with strength…’
‘My bride in a ceremony of blossoming poui trees / Caress me where your valley is ablaze with colour / Quench the hell where my lusting soul screams / Cradle me like anxious fish in your rapids / till, at last / I am the black spirit in a sheltered pond.’
Some of my favourites are: ‘heaven of oceans’, ‘persuasion of children’s voices’, ‘exhilaration of a Flame’, ‘continent of new meaning’, ‘yard of my longing’.