Listening to the ones from before

Jul 01, 2023 Letters

Dear Editor,

Grandma’s sayings

You can search the internet all day.

Read every fat book you need to fetch in a wheelbarrow.

Listen to every teacher and stare at every grim blackboard.

Until your eyes protest with water and fire.

But Grandma’s advice that adorned our days and nights,

shines through them all like the bright North Star.

It’s a different world, but Grandma’s sayings still ring true,

like the playfulness of the Atlantic and the silence in its depths.

Grandma had a saying for everything under the sun.

But then I was young and it was all fun,

and knew little of the worth of Grandma’s sagacious advice.

Sometimes they come into my mind like the splendid sunshine,

and then sometimes like the springing of a leopard—

a warning, a hint lest I be taken by the wily ways of the world.

They still regale my heart and mind like rich red wine,

and who would dare to scorn what Grandma said

while she fed the needle with the long blue thread:

“one ounce of prevention better than a pound of cure.

Don’t hang your hat where your hand cannot reach.

You never miss the water till the well runs dry.

What sweet ah goat mouth does sour he backside.

Easy snake does bite hot.

Moon ah run till day ketch am.

Can’t suck cane and blow whistle.

Every skin teeth is no laugh.

Na tek yuh mattee eye fuh see.

What you see daytime, don’t look fuh at night with fire stick.”

Yours sincerely,

Haimnauth Cecil Ramkirath

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