Old Ground: A Poem About Going Home

My name is Brianna Brown. I use they/them pronouns and I’m a queer, first-generation Jamaican American poet. I’m completing my first year at Barnard College, where I’m majoring in Environment and Sustainability. I wrote the following poem as tribute to Old Ground, the hill in Jamaica where my family resides. Inspired by homesickness, this poem is a plea to return to the place that holds my soul.

old ground

please

take me to

old ground

where ground is old

and air is sweet

like soursop ice cream

warm sandy toes

and clear blue sea

where trees erupt

from old dirt

stand tall and true

watching, observing, protecting

this land

crowns reign

leaf showers

and bush

grows wild and free

lush and lavish

soaring slim slinky slivers

of gentle gracing lime green

emerge from red dirt

sprouting and springing

like coconut palms

yearning to touch sky

try oh my

if only

they would not curl

please unfurl

here in this wind

you and i, we’ll twirl

can you show me where

cornflower meets royalty

together they

fuse, infuse, refuge

one body one mind one spirit

please free

my body my mind my spirit

please

take me to old ground

where the ground is old

and holds my soul

where clouds stride high

above my heart flies

where rain water purifies

makes my body etherealize

where woodfire smoke lilts

my whole world tilts

take me to old ground