Emmanuel Road

Emmanuel Road

after Kei Miller’s “The Colours of the Singerman’s Songs”

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Go down Emmanuel Road and you will hear

the voice of the Singerman, trickling like sweat

from leaves and boughs of tangled trees,

shedding scarce shadows over bent backs

of men who labor from darkness to darkness.

His song pitches and plummets like gusts of wind

to drum beats of hammers, the punctuation of pickaxes.

Calling, urging, with his refrain like a prophet,

each foot, each yard, another act of penance.

One by one and two by two, breaking

rock-stones and dreams, as the days pass over,

the Singerman’s intonations trundle up and down

hilltop and gullyside, around bends, over streams.

The Singerman claims this is only a game,

but one way, or another, they’re all playing for keeps.

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[Author's Note: This poem was inspired by the work of Kei Miller, specifically his poetry collection, "A Light Song of Light". The character of "The Singer Man" appears in multiple poems in this collection, including the “The Colours of the Singerman’s Songs”. My "Singerman", though inspired by Miller's, takes a different approach.

Aside from the inspiration provided by Kei Miller's poetry, my poem also draws from Jamaican folk culture. Specifically, "Emmanuel Road" is a Jamaican folk song (sometimes called by other names). Besides taking my title from the folk song, my poem makes multiple allusions to that song.

The folk song, and accompanying game, are derived from the days of manual labor road crews. Much like with field songs originating in an earlier era, the "Singerman" would motivate the workers and their songs kept time for the actions of their picks and shovels. The folk song, "Emmanuel Road", comes from these road work crews.]

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