Raymond Antrobus
Antrobus or Land of Angels
Antrobus or Land of Angels
Wherever you are, you touch the bark of trees . . .
different yet familiar – Czesław Miłosz
I can be fiendish, I can’t be English, say ghosts.
Some with shaved heads, some with cane-rows,
muttering themselves into notebooks.
The barman’s eyes in The Antrobus Arms
become sharp gates when I claim to be English.
My mother, born here
My grandfather, the local preacher.
Oh, well then, welcome, he says or land your angels.
(There are enigmas in my deafness.)
I stare at the crest of gold lions behind the bar –
I scar the cross of Davidic’s line behind the bar –
hear my ghosts say
Fiendish? –
English?
The barman calls the whole village
and my name does the rounds.
My mother drives us to Antrobus Hall.
Two German Shepherds surround
the car. I climb out, it’s raining.
The dogs jump, their paws scraping
a new coat of earth on my chest.
A farmer appears, asks if we’re descended
from Edmund Antrobus.
Sir Edmund Antrobus, (3rd baronet)
slaver, beloved father
over-seer, owner of plantations
in Jamaica, British Guiana and St Kitts.
I shake my head, avoid the farmer’s eye.
my mother and I tread the cemetery
of Saint Mark’s, Antrobus,
and see everyone buried here is of Antrobus
We look up and see hawks in the ash trees
and sparrows in the wheat fields
and the rain-soaked stones of Antrobus
and after we walk the slick mirrors
of wet roads, the curves
of Barbers Lane, between trees
I take a photo of our shadows, flung
over the red berry bushes
like black coats.
