White like the North and the cold places on the earth my great grandfather was fond of over-proof *** and caribbean sailor blue waves
His Nigerian goddess bore him nine children pretty little barefoot toffee skinned children scampering through sugarcane fields and tall tropical grasses the lilting sound of their voices playing on balmy breezes
My Aunt Glo remembers him well strolling about with his switch and stiff upper English lip he governed the immense rural Jamaican plantation in St. Elizabeth around the end of the Nineteeth century
Everyone called him Pupa and his wife Muma
I don't know much about Muma except that her mother was an enslaved person and that she had to tolerate the insult of ritually hiding her mixed children when Pupa's mother, Lady Bush flounced into town with her entourage
There is an old photograph of the two of them:
Muma in white frock seated, her eyes drooping brown sparrows Pupa with his switch, pocket watch and far away eyes