 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome, good evening. My name is Tracy George, and it is with great pride and humility that I stand before you this evening as we pay tribute to one of our island's greatest sons, Sir Derek Alton Walcott. In the Paris Review interview, Sir Derek says that he was absolutely a Caribbean poet who longed for the company of better Caribbean poets. This evening we have the fulfillment of his dream. Gathered here tonight to pay homage to him are some of the finest local, regional and international artists. Sir Derek considered himself at the beginning rather than at the end of a tradition, a tradition of cultural greatness, and tonight promises to demonstrate that greatness. We now invite Her Excellency Dame Pallette-Louisey, the Governor-General of St. Lucia, and the Chair of the Noble Laureate Festival Committee with the welcome remarks. When I drove up this evening and I saw all the vehicles and the numbers streaming and I said, oh, where are these people when I have the Derek Walcott lecture? But I am glad that you've come and we couldn't do any less for Sir Derek. I was really asked, if I recall, to pay a small tribute to Sir Derek in my capacity as Chair of the Noble Laureate Week Committee. So I'll do that in the three minutes I was allotted. Our national celebration of our Noble Laureates, Sir Derek Walcott, began in January 1993, two months after this long awaited announcement reached the four corners of the globe. St. Lucia now had its second Noble Laureate, an amazing feat for a country of our size. As the years went by, the celebration grew from Noble Laureate Day to Noble Laureate Week and this year to the Noble Laureate Festival spanning almost three weeks. The aim of the celebrations has always been twofold. First, the honouring of the achievements of our two laureates and secondly, the showcasing of the work and contribution of our nationals across the board in every sphere of endeavour. And in fact, our theme has been over the years, celebrating excellence. After all, we reasoned there might just be another Laureate or two in our midst, just waiting to be called. From the very beginning, the Derek Walcott lecture has been a staple of the programme of activities. The presenters have come from among us, from the region and far, far beyond our shores. We welcome those from that impressive list who have come back to pay their last respects. The St. Lucia Noble Laureate Committee, in collaboration with both public and private sector agencies and organisations, has always considered it an honour to be in the vanguard of programmes, projects and activities to celebrate the man, his life and his work. It is our fervent hope that his passing will not diminish our efforts to honour his achievements and to show our appreciation in very tangible ways for his exceptional contribution to the literary, artistic and cultural legacy of St. Lucia, the Caribbean and the world. For us, Sir Derek will always be a beacon of excellence. We will continue to follow that guiding light, beckoning us to continue to celebrate his work, just as we did while he lived among us. And if indeed you think one of these days, or in the days to come, that you just saw him in that, and I quote, neglected inlet, or in that green, funny hole by the road in the mountain over there, do not be alarmed. For he will always be with us, having promised not to leave his home until he and his fellow artist had put it all down in words and paint. He will be with us for a while because you will agree that there is still a lot of writing and painting to be done. And a lot of mentoring and teaching and guiding to be offered. So he is around and you will be seeing him. And just again let me, you know, just tell you don't, while it wouldn't be, you know, a sucouillon or any of those things. It will just be Sir Derek in every little corner of St. Lucia because that's what his life's work was. We saw the beauty of our country through his eyes and so we'll be seeing him everywhere return. In Theopolis Hound he taught us what should be true of the remembered life. And it is what he calls the freshness of detail. This is how it was. Let us therefore remember Sir Derek how he was. The St. Lucia Nobel Laureate Committee joins our nation and the world in celebrating the life of one of the world's greatest poets. So, ladies and gentlemen, let us celebrate Sir Derek's life. Let us not forget him. And as Derek once said, I have never separated the writing of poetry from prayer. I have grown up believing it is a vocation, a religious vocation. And with that said, I welcome Monsignor Patrick Anthony with the prayers for this evening. Thank you Father for this wonderful gift of our nation, our people, your son Derek. Fill our hearts with this bounty, this sense of gratitude for all that you have and continue to give us. We say thank you Father. Nukaru Papa, merci, merci. And we join in the manner in which we've all prayed so often our Father who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen, amen, amen. Derek says, I think the African influence is in the melody of my voice. I think it's there that you can find the music. Certainly in the place it's very strong because it's a society of percussion. And with that we now have Lapokabuit with a drumming performance. Graduated from the University of the West Indies with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1953. 20 years later he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree, is a university's highest honor and is awarded to someone who has made outstanding contributions to and sterling representation of his society at home and abroad. No one can dispute the fact that Cedric Walcott did this at a level far beyond the reach of our collective imagination and the UWI is proud to have been instrumental in nurturing his early development as a poet and playwright. In fact we like to think of his scholarly genius flourishing under the stately poohy trees on our beautiful monocampus in Jamaica in the shadow of the legendary Blue Mountains as that phenomenal mind churned out poetic language with unparalleled mastery. Cedric's legacy lives on at the UWI through a scholarship which was established in his name for students enrolled in the theater arts program at the St. Augustine campus. However we can also point to a more personal legacy to our institution in the form of his daughters. Professor Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw who heads the department of modern languages and linguistics at St. Augustine and Miss Anna Walcott-Hardy who served the university for many years as communications manager and also editor in chief of the campus news magazine. UWI vice chancellor Sir Hilary Beckles aptly described Cedric as one of the finest intellects of the 20th century a literary phenomenon. Much of Walcott's work is imbued with the ethos of a people brought together by historical forces. It documents the way in which we have forged through pain and suffering laughter and hope that Caribbean is owner which is like no other. Cedric was never constrained by artificial boundaries he was a world figure nevertheless no matter how far his intellectual wanderings took him he always returned to the Caribbean and in particular the landscape of his beloved sently sea. It pained him though to see how many had lost their way embracing greed and destruction of the beauty of a land which even the great laureate could never find enough words to describe. In white egrets he mourned the doomed acres where yet another luxury hotel will be built with ordinary people fenced out and he decried a policy that will make the island a mall perpetuating a slavery without chains. Those doomed acres are at Pigeon Island, Sandy Beach, Poilet or Sabuisha the pain which poured from his pen is palpable. Cedric was also very concerned about the disappearance of literature from our schools and the corresponding rise of insensibility of disregard for what is beautiful and what is spiritually sustaining. I recall how excited he was when the UE open campus introduced a creative writing course for young writers. At my last meeting with him and Sigrid you will remember that although he was obviously weakening he expressed his commitment to doing some guest lectures for this course but he insisted that we put on Shakespeare's King Leigh as one of the required texts. Catherine Atkinson and I tried in vain to explain to him that this might scare the beginning writers but he waived us away at saying dismissively no one should be doing a creative writing course without doing King Leigh. We must start with King Leigh. We also discussed putting on a series of master class lectures which would have been held at the Walcott house this semester. He thought that this would be a wonderful way of making the Walcott house a living museum but alas despite his most valiant intentions it was not to be. Cedric was the true embodiment of the motto of our university Orient's ex occidente looks a light rising from the west. He rose from among us a people battered bruised brutally colonized and he shone on a world stage creating a space for those who followed him and made his work their beacon. Cedric certainly kept the promise that he and St. Dunstan St. Homer had made and to which he refers in another life they swore that we would never leave the island until we had put down in paint in words all of its sunken leaf choked ravines and every neglected self-pitying inlet. It was as if he had envisaged the relentless Philistinian assault on our fair island and he sought through the immortality of metaphor to leave us the gift of memory at the very least. For the sake of our children I hope that we will be left with more than metaphor to mark the uniqueness of our country. Having left us his heart and soul embodied in his writing Cedric's light like that of his Alma Mater University will never be dimmed. Those of us who truly love this land must use his passion to light our own way in making the right decisions for our and Derek's beloved St. Lucia. The University of the West Indies Administration students and staff join Cedric's family and friends in mourning this great loss and in celebrating this great life as we seek peace and comfort in the volume of work that he has left behind. Light and blessings to you all and may he rest in peace. I first met Derek in 1992 after he'd won his Nobel Prize and he came back to Trinidad to revive a lot of his work at the theatre workshop and I was one of the young guns that had the privilege to get the opportunity to do his work and I am eternally grateful and thankful and I say Derek's genius was matched only by his generosity certainly to me and a whole generation of younger players. The first play that I got a chance to do was Dream on Monkey Mountain and I'd like to do a little piece from that, not the part that I played but Macac, a part that was played by Errol Jones and I remember being on stage with him in Rotterdam and completely forgetting my lines because I was so mesmerized by his acting so I'll try my best please. I remember one day when I was younger 50 years old or so I wake up alone and I do not know myself. I wake up an old man that morning with my clothes thinking of 50 years of sweat, my eye closing with gum, my two hands trembling, trembling when I opened them so and I look in them with all the marks like rivers, like a dead tree and I ask myself in a voice I do not know who you are Neg. I say to the voice and to my hands with the black cold and the cuts I say your name is what an older man without a mirror and I went in little rain barrel behind my hut and looked down in the quiet, quiet water at my face an old cracked burn up face with the hair turning white and it was Macac. So I say if you dead now, well what? The woman will cry for you. No child will look at your face in debt as if it was the first time. The water in the rain barrel will show the cloud changing and as it have no memory will forget your face. It will show the hawk passing smaller than a fly and it will lick a dead leaf with its tongue but you will go under this earth and burn and change as if you are coal yourself Shabone. A big, big loneliness possesses me as if I was happy once and strong but could not remember where as if in some way I was not no charcoal burner. God be blessed but a king and I feel strongly to go down that mountain and to reach the sea as if the place I remember was across the sea. Lord, I have been washed from shore to shore as a tree in the ocean. The branches of my fingers, the roots of my feet could grip nothing but now God they have found ground. Let me be swallowed up in mist again and let me be forgotten so that when the mist open men could look up at a small hut in a clearing and a small signal of smoke and say Makak lives there. Makak lives where he has always lived in the dream of his people. Other men will come, other prophets will come and they will be beaten and stoned and betrayed but at last this old hermit is going back home back to the beginning to the green beginnings of this world. Come, Mustik, we're going home. More sorrow, pain in my father's kingdom. I go in hope. This is La Ve Time. Makak no charcoal burner but a king. I bring you greetings from the Fokriset Center because it is at the Fokriset Center that Derek found an oasis of hope. What he wanted to do to make fishermen and foresters heraldic man. That's what he has done. He made Timomai, Cetlisi, children of the Caribbean, epic, world class, phenomenal. And so we bring you greetings tonight from the splendor of our achievements where Derek has brought us. We say to you, let us not grieve. Oh little red bird in your cage of red tremble, tremble. The sky has no gates, the open air is your temple. This is why we bring you greetings tonight, not condolences greetings as we celebrate. In 1976 Derek published Sea Grapes and the central poem of Sea Grapes called Cetlisi. The third part there's a poem called Ayona Mabuya Valley. It is all Creole. Well not really. It was Derek's attempt at Creole and in fact the lexicon was all French until he encountered things like. And what did he write? And then he stuck so he put Kai Kaai, Benir, B-E-N-I-R, apostrophe O-U-S-O, Benirus. You see there was no orthography, there was no writing system and so Harry had attempted earlier on to find somewhere to capture the language of the people. As Derek sought to capture that language, but he struggled. This is why the focus that sender was for him and Oasis because we did not only plumb the depths of the Saint Lucian culture and creativity. We were able with persons like those involved National Research Foundation to come up with an orthography, a writing system. So today we can say we can rewrite Ayona with an established orthography. The focus at center celebrates those who have to form the minds of Derek and Roddy and Dunstan. We have a Harold Simmons Folk Academy. It is a place where we are celebrating Saint Lucia, where we are celebrating what Derek discovered. I spoke with Eric Branford to whom Ayona has been dedicated and I told him, Eric, Derek dedicated that poem to you. Yes, Eric Branford. He said, Baba, you know, I used to be working at PHEU and in those days I had the truck and so in my work I used to go all around the country and Harry would jump at the back and Roddy and Derek and Spa on his BSA bike would follow and there they would go. He told me how, you know how we discovered Cezanne? It was on those trips when they were coming from Viewfort and we went by Grace Augustine and Grace Augustine said, there is a young lady who sings so beautifully and she called Cezanne and Cezanne came out and when Derek and Dan Crowley heard Cezanne, no wonder she loved, he loved Cezanne so much. My country heart is never home till Cezanne sings, he says. This is why he loves so much, but he'll send them when they're playing. Oh yes, this is why tonight we celebrate and in the name of the Fokker Center we say, Derek, you live on brother, your spirit continues to lift up this nation, you have brought us to the pinnacle, the world gazes at us tonight. Thank you, we shall not let you down, we shall continue as John Robert Lee says, for ours is an HS line. Thank you. If in the light of things you fade, real yet only withdrawn to our determined and appropriate distance, like the moon left on all night among the leaves, may you invisibly delight this house of star, doubly compassionate, who came too soon for twilight, too late for dawn, near pale flame direct the worst in us through chaos with a passion of plain day. It is no small honor to be asked sometimes to speak on behalf of a friend, be it at a wedding, the courthouse, or even at a funeral. You progress with alacrity to infuse the mortal coil with power and purpose beyond capacity of its humble fragile human sinews, living or dead, glowing of course in the end when you receive the traditional pat on the back for a job well done. But when that mortal frame once belonged to a living legend who has eclipsed into immortality, what can you say? What can one write that has not been written before at least once? This is the predicament in which I find myself standing before you trying to weave my magic in five minutes without a wand or with the dexterity of a G.K. Rowlands. What can I talk about that has not been said in his honest simple voice or have not already been uttered by others in blowing superlatives? A great poet does not happen like a freak of nature. Nothing is by chance. First comes that deep love which breeds the fragility of humanism, manifesting as a love of country and deep rooted sense of belonging, becoming one with the earth wrapped in mankind's enduring embrace. A phenomenon, a phenomenal faith grounded in sincerity and truth. There is the loneliness and the isolation that brings tears when moments grip the nerve and the urge to encapsulate the second and store it for posterity on a page reverberates on the mind. Simply put, he loved his country, St. Ruscha and its people beyond reproach down to the last grain of dust, rising with a hot wind in Lent on an unpaved country road. He loved the smell of the creole bread rising with mourning from a baker's oven or etherized by the joys effused in an old woman's toothless grin. Moise Jean, St. Lucie, c'est la moissotie. He sings in his local vernacular. Of him it could be truly said as he said of Harry in another life. His island forest opened and enclosed him like a rare butterfly between its leaves, armed with a simple gift to see beyond the horizon of mortality into the heart of ordinary things, so that paradise once lost could be regained. Now he walks again with his mother Alex, his sister Pam, twin brother Roddy and with the brotherhood of poets Seamus and Joseph, Martin and Eric, Césaire and St. Jean Pierce. I can imagine him calling for a typewriter, paper and a fresh ribbons the minute he landed. His name now permanently carved in legend should not be honored in sadness with the usual parody of tears, but in tribute to his memory imagine the driven girl finally coming to rest on the gommie log waiting for an ads to shape it into the long canoe that will take him on the journey to wherever all poets go. To Sigrid, Peter, Lizzie, Anna and his nephew Nigel, it will be hard for you in the beginning to balance between a companion, father, uncle and the larger than life symbol of all humanity that he was. The pain of absence tears the mind, I know that well, but in time you will find consolation knowing that he lives on in his pages the leaves of that monumental edifice he built with his two blessed hands over the short span of seven decades and that will endure the whips of time for and will be with us beyond all or own humble years. There will be many equals similar to William Shakespeare in the English language, but Derek Walcott has no duplicate. I extend my deepest condolences and that of the literary and theatre community in St. Russia. To Derek's family and his large circle of friends from far and near we will all miss him and the offbeat jokes and his infectious laughter that always made you laugh in spite of the jokes. I end abruptly respecting the constraints of time with a quote from Omeros that typifies his monumental genius and his love for all mankind. Because rhyme remains the parenthesis of palms shielding a candle's tongue in its in it it is the language's desire to enclose the love world in its arms. I thank you. Then the point came on the prejudice right my right my name up there you fit touch my finger on the golden thread the golden pen the golden pen you fit touch my finger on the golden pen and write my name up there the sea is history where are your monuments your battles martyrs where's your tribal memory serves in that grave vault the sea the sea has locked them up the sea is history first there was the even oil heaviest chaos then like a light at the end of a tunnel the lantern of a caravell and that was genesis then there were the packed cries the shit the mourning exodus bone soldered by coral to bone mosaics mantled by the benediction of the shark's shadow that was the ark of the covenant then came from the plucked wires of sunlight on the sea floor the plangeant harp of the Babylonian bondage as the wide quarries clustered like manacles of the drowned women and those were the ivory bracelets of the song of Solomon but the ocean kept turning blank pages looking for history then came the men with eyes heavy as anchors who sank without tombs brigands who barbecued cattle leaving their charred ribs like palm leaves on the shore then the forming rabid maw of the tidal wave swallowing port royal that was Jonah but where is your renaissance sir it is locked in them sea sands out there past the reef's moiling shelf where the man o war floated down strap on these goggles i'll guide you there myself it's all subtle and submarine through colonnades of coral past the gothic windows of sea fans to wear the crusty grouper on excite blinks weighted by its jewels like a bald queen and these groined caves with branicles pitted like stone are our cathedrals and the furnace before the hurricane Gomorrah bones ground by windmills into marlin cornmeal and that was lamentations that was just lamentations but it was not history then came like scum on the river's drying lip the brown reeds of villages mantling and congealing into towns and at evening the midges choirs and above them the spires lancing the side of god as his son said and that was the new testament then came the white sisters clapping to the waves progress and that was emancipation jubilation old jubilation vanishing swiftly as the seas lays dries in the sun but that was not history that was only faith and then each rock broke into its own nation then came the synod of flies then came the secretarial heron then came the bullfrog bellowing for a vote fireflies with bright ideas and bats like jetting ambassadors and the mantis like khaki police and the furred caterpillars of judges examining each place closely and then in the dark airs of ferns and in the salt chuckle of rocks with their sea pools there was the sound like a rumor without any echo of history really really beginning for Derek Walker for no matter how many promises god has made they are yes in christ and so through him the amen is spoken by us to the glory of god paul second Corinthians 120 in the black box the lights isolate emotion with theatrical efficiency every gesture is art as if in the clean rehearsed moments the word as the beginning of all things and glorious yes of possibility must be followed by the congregant saying amen this is the holy theater a world i have come to think of as a home place a shelter the womb of my art so there in that black box deep inside a winter storm in providence they tell me the old man has slipped into his first sleep and his editor calls they say to listen to the soft ebb and flow of the sea and his breathing no one wants to say all is silence now but we do know that after the poem is over what remains is a soft pulse of the sea where we the macaques of history find our cathedrals our history our glorious tomb i do not expect the thickening in a thickening pain in my throat as if i could fall down and we i did not expect the moment to be like this but it was and here in the beginning of our lamentation here is the beginning of all lamentation for weeks i've carried in my head the calculation of greatness how ambitious was the madman lawel how full of the privilege of his new england elitism how it is that every time i think of the boston police coming to secure him and carry him to another dark asylum i can only think that i envy him the dignity they afforded him and i think that the st lusion would have known that five white boston cops would not sit at his breakfast table while he shivered and ranted and read from the sea his history before deporting him to the asylum of fire and healing this is the way history arrests ambition we migrants stay sane so that we can live to go mad in our secret chambers but the old man has slipped into his first sleep and at last all his promises of last poems last words last testament seem fulfilled this is not yet an elegy merely an effort to clear the glue in my throat and a way of saying that his art comes to me burnished with so many grand yeses and on this morning of great chill i have learned to pray for language just enough to offer a word of company for the old man and the word is waves not original surely but i offer it the sea the soft waves reaching the coast the pulling back the soft snore of a man waiting to leave the shore at last i bring greetings from kalabash in jamaica from justine hensel from my friend elizabeth alexander from people tree books an army of poets who continue to be tutored by derrick walkard we offer condolences we offer strength and we offer love a world a world a world that we have lost thank you it is indeed an honor to read to you a tribute to noble laureate sir derrick walkard on behalf of the right honorable patricia scotland queens council our commonwealth general secretary there is something about sir derrick walkard's poetry the wind ruffling the twenty pelton the strands of an ancient pastorial in those shies of the island where cattle drank their pools of shadow from the old sky or the soft scissored foam as a deck turned white and the moon opened a cloud like a door growing up in the united kingdom there were many occasions when this powerful imagery transported me instantly back to my land of birth to behold the scenery that must have inspired his words and i as i defined my own identity he reminded me that the time will come when with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door and in your own mirror each will smile at the other's welcome and say sit here eat i have had the pleasure of meeting sir derrick walkard only once in person but his poems have had a lasting impact on me and i was deeply saddened to learn of the death of this bright commonwealth star and though he has slipped beyond our reach his profound wisdom his brilliance and his inspiration to pursue greatness are immortalized in the lines of powerful poetry like omiros which captured the essence of the caribbean and stirred the hearts of minds and people around the globe born in a small caribbean island his ingenuity vision and passion for excellence propelled him into the spotlight of the world stage and earned him the glittering honor of a noble prize again and again i saw sir derrick fiercely addressing the issue of caribbean identity and challenging the stereotypes and skewed perceptions that separate us all he once referred to the earth as an island of archipelagos in the stars so for me his greatest legacy is the knowledge that wherever we are born in a developed or developing country in a vast continent on a small caribbean island we all have the potential for greatness this is why i would like to join the government and people of st lusia today to honor their son and to celebrate his life and immense contribution he has made to literature for my country dominica and st lusia are inextricably linked by our history our language culture kingship topography we are truly sisters in many ways sir derrick felt as if he belonged a little to all of us we will really miss his light as a poet i would now like to read one of my favorite poetry that made me fall in love with sir derrick walker love after love the time will come when with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door in your own mirror and each will smile at the others welcome and say sit here eat you will love again the stranger who was yourself give wine give bread give back your heart to itself to the stranger who has loved you all your life whom you ignored for another who knows you by heart take down the love letters from the bookshelf the photographs the desperate notes peel your own image from the mirror sit feast on your life let his words continue to light the word you B What's what's Why why why why Why Why Why why Why Why To every place. So Derek was present. If we don't sing that song, you must sing that song first for him before you leave. And as I'm singing that song, I'm feeling everything inside of me is moving because this gentleman was my pal. This gentleman was my pal. And I miss him dearly. I'm thinking of Walter de La Mer's farewell, a poem he cherished and herring these lines in the grit of his voice with the waves joining the recitation. How will fair the world whose wonder was the very proof of me? It's a question for us. We, the bewildered, we, the ones left behind. Derek Walcott left us a universe he built with sedimental, not sentimental accretion, the great mythology he remade out of our Byzantine lands and lives. He believed so very deeply in us. He really believed in the Caribbean, which he taught us is a synonym for the world. He believed in poetry. Derek said to me once, the presence of that landscape or seascape inside you is superior to whatever language you speak. It is stronger than the language you speak. You can't separate the rhythm of Mali from the hills of Jamaica and you don't need the Mali because the hills are there. But ultimately, they are only manifestations of praise. He was and is a school in which we could train and study and be assessed in the craft, elemental and plural as a school of fish who collect now translucent into his face, then are startled by me and scatter and he is gone again. Everybody has a Walcott story. I have too many to tell. After a reading he gave in London over a decade ago, his partner, Sigrid Nama said to me, you just keep on turning up like a bad penny. And bad penny me was somehow welcomed into their fold. I am still floored by his generosity, his genius sonority. Every day I think of the line Christ, my craft and the long time it is taking. Have I disappointed you? Have I failed you? The past tense is painful. For years now I have been turning over the last words of his Nobel lecture like a shell in my hands, cherishing our insignificance. What does that mean? Insignificant, unimportant, small in size, without meaning, answering to no purpose. Those deemed insignificant like us are without meaning that others can understand, answering to no purpose but our own. We have a vision, a power beyond our own comprehension in our mass of blessed obscurity. Like the fly, we small ones see what others cannot. We, the bastards of history, the strangers, the outsiders, the small ones, Los Naries, Les Dames de la Terre. He more than anyone else shows us the infinite in the infinitesimal. Even in your stillness, you are moving still. Auction time, auction time, ladies and gentlemen, is auction time. Foreign investors, ladies and gentlemen, auction time. I am your licensed auctioneer. Paradise for sale, two 38 square miles, as is, where is. They love it so much, they've fought over it. Seven times British, seven times French. Auction time, auction time, ladies and gentlemen, is auction time. Petals for sale, view to die for, buy one, get one free. $11,000, do I have $12,000, $12,000, $12,000, do I have $15,000, $16,000, do I have $17,000, $18,000, go in once, $18,000, go in twice, gone. So, so, so, to the millionaire over the under, to be a mega resort at the foothills of the whole heritage site. Auction time, auction time, ladies and gentlemen, is auction time. Another, another fine day for an auction. That's what's up for grub. White sandy beach, beachfront, bargain hunt. Paradise for sale, all its tropical splendor, for an and for an, simply beautiful. Paradise for sale, sale, sale, sale. Do I have $12,000, do I have $30,000, go in once, go in twice, do I have $50,000, $50,000, $50,000, go in once, go in twice, gone. So, so, so, to the big belliger meek and man with the white straw hat, with white, white, white short pants, flowers, shirt, wearing sandals over there. Another luxury hotel, passports for sale, airports for sale, seaports for sale, a space for sale. Auction time, auction time, ladies and gentlemen, is auction time, sale, sale, sale. Lands in the south for sale, going cheap, going cheap, cheap, cheap. For lease or for sale, do I have $1 per acre, do I have $1 per acre, $1 per acre, going once, $1 per acre, going twice, going, going, gone. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, to the Chinese man over there in Beijing for integrated resort notice trespassers will be violated by fun too. Passports for sale, airports for sale, seaports for sale, a space for sale. Auction time, auction time, Ladies and gentlemen, it's auction time. Maria Island for sale, Rat Island for sale. For the Heritage Park for sale. Pigeon Island National Park for sale. National Landmark. Soul, soul, soul to Dolphin Park. Frequent Island, soul, soul, soul to the foreign investor online. Passports for sale, Airports for sale, Sea Ports for sale. Auction time, auction time. Ladies and gentlemen, it's auction time. Potential World Heritage Site for sale. World's only driving volcano for sale. Crownlands for sale, Woodlands for sale, Seabed for sale, Coral Reef for sale, Queens Chain for sale, Black Bay Lands, Soul, soul, soul to the foreign investor on Skype. Passports for sale, Airports for sale, Sea Ports for sale, S-Base for sale, Auction time, auction time. Ladies and gentlemen, it's auction time. JQ Charles for sale. Super J, soul, soul, soul to my sisters. Glass going, going, Bridge Street branch gone. Bunker said, Lusha International, all the bunk you need, soul, soul, soul. Independence celebration morning. We will wake up, flags waving. I am Lushan, I am Lusha. And suddenly realize, 238 square miles on the auction block. Going once, going twice, going, going, going, soul, soul, soul to the cheapest foreign bidder online. Thank you very much. Good night. You prepare for one sorrow, but another comes. It is not like the weather. You cannot brace yourself. The unreadiness is all your companion, the woman, the friend next to you, the child at your side and the dog. We tremble for them. We look seaward and muse. It will rain. We shall get ready for rain. You do not connect the sunlight altering the darkening oleanders in the sea garden, the gold going out of the palms. You do not connect this, the fleck of the drizzle on your flesh with the dog's whimper. The thunder doesn't frighten. The readiness is all what follows at your feet is trying to tell you. The silence is all. It is deeper than the readiness. It is sea deep, earth deep, love deep. The silence is stronger than thunder. We are stricken dumb and deep as the animals who never utter love as we do. Except it becomes unutterable and must be said in a whimper. It tears in the drizzle that comes to our eyes, not uttering the loved thing's name. The silence of the dead. The silence of the deepest buried love is the one silence. And whether we bear it for beast, for child, for woman, or friend, it is the one love. It is the same. And it is blessed, deepest by loss. It is blessed. It is blessed. Mama hella di why, why? Di why y'all call, why? Di why do do, why? Di why to do? For the crackle and the hiss of the word August. Like a low bonfire on a beach. For the wriggling of white masts in the marina on a Wednesday after work. I would return. I would come back and forget the niggling complaints of what the island lacks, how it is without the certainties of cities. Mama hella di why? For a fisherman walking back to this village with his jigging rod and a good catch that blazes like rainbows when he shows it to you. For the ember that goes out suddenly like a match when the day and all that it brought is finished. For the lights on the pairs and for the first star for whom my love of the island has never diminished but will burn steadily when I am gone. Wherever you are and for the lion's silhouette of Pigeon Island and your cat that presumes the posture of a sphinx and for the long empty sand of your absence. Mama hella di why? Di why y'all call, di why y'all call? Mama hella di why? Sir Derek Walker, January 23, 1930, to March 17, 2017. May you so rest in peace or job or both area by Derek Walker. For one sorrow but another comes. It is not like the weather. You cannot brace yourself. We tremble for them. Look seaward and muse, not connect, not connect this. Earth deep, love deep, sea kings. Half my friends are dead. I will make a new one said earth. No, give me them back as they were instead. With faults and all, I cried. Tonight I can snatch their talk from the fainter's drone through the kings but I cannot walk. On moonlit leaves of ocean down that white road alone of floating with that dreaming motion. Hours living earth's load. O earth, the number of friends keep exceeds those left to be loved. The sea kings by the cliff flash green and silver. They were the seraph lances of my faith. But out of what is lost grows something stronger. That has the rational radiance of stone. And join moonlight further than despair. Love after love. Sir Derek Walcott, January 23rd, 1930, to March 17th, 2017. May is so restful. Of his treasured motherland, like a giant strong and tall, with a literary plan. Because I feel proud. I come to recognize all these fairies. Derek Alton Walcott must get that blue belt prize. He was born for the Hall of Fame. Praise for the wider claim. A son of this Lucian land, the brightest good in flame. An extraordinary man of honor, pride and fame. He should show all his plays on TV. Greatest living writer in this world today. Shout it from the hilltop. Son, write it in the sky. Derek Alton Walcott, born for the Hall of Fame. He was born for the Hall of Fame. Must get that blue belt prize. A song penned by Ron Sion. Music by myself. Was written more than a year before Derek Walcott was awarded the Nobel Prize. So there was a prediction which came true for Saint Lucia. I thank you very much and may he so rest in peace. I'm Nigel St. Hill. I was born on 17 Chelsea Road about 74 years ago. I grew up with Derek Roddy and my mother Pamela and my grandmother Alex Walcott. On behalf of Sigrid, the whole Walcott family, nephews, nieces, cousins, et cetera, et cetera, grandchildren, I'd like to thank the following people. Now I have to read you. Give me a break. Her Excellency team, Paulette Louisi, the Governor-General of Saint Lucia, Senator, the Honorable Fortuna Bellarose, Minister in the Ministry of Local Government and Culture. Other ministers, performers, Cultural Development Foundation, and the people of Saint Lucia. Thank you very much for a wonderful evening. That change of heart could have, that change of heart, the problems could be right out of the door. Those who have not, the bottom is top, need to change out. The inspiration of a derrick and a man like him, that man seemed like a boot sabotein. The inspiration of a derrick and a man like him, that man seemed like a boot sabotein. And Mr. Man, right poach read the rhythm. Read poach read the rhythm, read the rhythm. Because the rhythm of the word and the power, you know the rhythm of the word and the power of the word. You know the rhythm of the word and the power of the thing. And Mr. Man, right poach read the rhythm. Something stood within me as this raspy voice fondled my air with both as familiar as the Old Testament, a testament to our mentors and buried dawned intellectuals standing like liars. And as John before Christ, warfing away when frail lip and wasted body insufflated the printed page, kindling a pride coursing through my veins, rending me from slumbers embraced in search of nib and virgin page to pen how on a crisp January night with cherished sun and liturated zunas with tickles of the colonial past.