When last you take dew in a panyard?

by Tillah Willah

Is when you ketch bout the fourth wind on a day that started at 5 a.m. and involved too many coffees and not enough food. Is then that the jumbie does guide your body to Radoes yard. Is just after 10 when you have to turn your face to the wall away from the band and the small but rapt audience because the sobs coming from deep in your belly. When last you was out your house so late? When last you take dew in a panyard? Is really two years? This panyard feeling like the dying moments of a fete, when you high on sleep deprivation and rum and you feeling so full of love and gratitude for life and that your knees make it through. The pan so sweet you want to rip the government mask off your face and scream out into the night 'Ogun is mih faddaaaaaa'

Desperadoes Steel Orchestra playing Lord Nelson's Party Tonight and Stevie Wonder's Pastime Paradise and this combination of songs is so apt and timely. And in the notes, in the grumbling bass, in the dancing of the players there is all your sorrow and relief and sweetness and grief of the last two years. Making it through only happened with the hope that these nights would come again.

#BlackHistoryMonth #SteelpanMusicExcellence #steelband