“There is a certain kind of peace that is not merely the absence of war.”
-Toni Morrison
Revelry is the calm before the storm,
Dancing bodies in colour and waistlines oiled from
4 o’clock J’ouvert air.
Legs know the road long enough,
Beating the sun.
The mas was hot.
A type of peace and amnesia of everything yuh dancing against.
After the mas
Somethings does unearth itself
And crawl up on the land to send people back into hiding.
It is then you’d realise how much the mas means.
To be unafraid and big and badjohn and a sketel climbing on the St James sign and touching and wining on everything.
Now you’d realize that kinda freedom,
While you sit
and watch the world burn, with no mas.
But for some reason,
You will still feel free.
The birth of a silent kind of mas in your homes-
Even after everyone leaves and returns to their hole.
The mas will continue,
The kinda peace knowing it’s more than twice a year you will be doing the same things.
And then you’ll know that even in all this burning,
“There is a certain kind of peace that is not merely the absence of war.”
Ashlee Burnett 