In our gospel today, Jesus, the Master, bequeaths to “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they
us peace: do.” (Lk 23:34) For Derek too had known the “dark
night of the soul”, the gathering of broken pieces of
Peace I bequeath to you, a region, the prejudices, the jealousies, the shameful
my own peace I give to you, betrayals. But as Sophocles asserts in Antigone,
a peace the world cannot give, this is my gift to translated for us by Derek’s friend Seamus Heaney in
you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. The Burial at Thebes “No windfall or good fortune
(Jn 14:27) comes to mortals/ That isn’t paid for in the coin of
pain” ( p.40). Today we might say “paid for in the
Is this an impossible prophecy! In a world where BIG COIN of pain”! And yet, despite the crucible,
megaton bombs annihilate hospitals, schools, whole despite the pain, Derek was able to proclaim “I have
neighbourhoods, in the name of peace; where swallowed all my hates” (Another Life, p.140), “I am
zealots slaughter the innocent in the name of God; powerless, except for love.” (Star-Apple
where even a tweet can be a weapon of mass Kingdom, p.51).
destruction. Can we not dream of peace? Can we
not “Ring the bells that still can ring” despite our Brother, dat is love! That is the love that Derek has
imperfect offering ? Perhaps there is still “ a crack, left not only us, but the world. The love that
a crack in everything/where the light can get reassembles the broken fragments of vase, which is
in”(Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”). stronger than that love which took its symmetry for
granted when it was whole ( The Antilles: Fragments
This is one of the gifts Derek has bequeathed to us ,
of Epic Memory.)
a hope, a dream, an impossible prophecy? A season
of phantasmal peace! A peace that comes with Such is the love of which Paul writes when he says:
“Love/made seasonless” like the seasonal passing Nothing can come between us and the love of
of the winged ones that carry “such an immense, Christ… For I am certain of this: neither death nor
soundless, and high concern…/ something brighter life, no angel, no prince, nothing that exists, nothing
than pity for the wingless ones/below them who still to come…can ever come between us and the
shared dark holes in windows and in houses”( “The love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Season of Phantasmal Peace", The Fortunate (Rm 8 :35-39)
Traveller,pp.98-99) . It is love, like a phantasmal
light, “the light that you will see at evening on the Such love that nothing can separate us from. Derek
side of a hill in yellow October.”(p.98) It is love that has discovered that, and he gave it to us in “Season
is so deep “sea-deep, earth-deep”(“Oddjob, a Bull of Phantasmal Peace”. Love, seasonless, love!
Terrier”, Sea Grapes, pp.85-86), abysmal; that even
if it “lasted one moment/like the pause/between We will gather shortly at Morne Fortune to
dusk and darkness, between fury and peace,/but, propitiously intern his mortal remains at a site which
for such as our earth is now,”( p.86) it would have overlooks Chausee Road and Rat Island where the
lasted long! brave fighting men of this land fell, the brigands, the
“Nèg Mawon.” They have no monuments. Derek’s
Such is the titanic Isaiahian vision, Derek has left us, presence will make it a sacred space, a kind of
and not only us, as a Caribbean potpourri of “Heroes Park”, where a grateful nation can celebrate
cultures, but the world, of which we are a its heroes. There too, “Harry” (Harold Simmons) can
microcosm. find a home. For his remains are unmarked
somewhere in that “small white city” Choc Cemetery,
Love that is redemptive, healing, reconciling, like the that can also be seen from there, of which Derek
cosmic love whispered brokenly on the cross once wrote in the Prodigal :