Jamaica's literary community was shocked and bereaved last week by the unexpected death of Gwyneth Barber-Wood, 60. Though she came late to poetry, Barber-Wood made up for it with an all-consuming passion and dedication to the craft; and her poetry deepened emotionally and grew in mastery, year by year. She was a regular contributor to the Jamaica Observer Arts Magazine and, latterly, the Sunday Gleaner Arts Section. Her first collection, The Garden of Forgetting, was published by Peepal Tree Press (Leeds, England) in 2005; a second collection is due out next year. At her death, Barber-Wood was one of Jamaica's leading poets and was acquiring an international reputation. Today, we reprint below one of the poems she wrote in the last weeks of her life. Her passing impoverishes Jamaican poetry. The Arts section offers its heartfelt condolences to husband Dayton Wood, son Sean Barber, brothers Colville and Earl Rickards, and Barber-Wood's other family members, fellow-writers and friends.

A commemorative evening of remembrances and readings from her work by leading Jamaican poets and members of the Writing Workshop, of which Barber-Wood was a leading light for the past eight years, will take place at The Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts, UWI, Mona, on Wednesday, 22nd November at 8.00 p.m. The public is invited.

'Vignettes'

1

The girl in the lilac cotton shirt and black

stretch pants is unaware time watches her;

the cloth the heavens made her from is smooth

as silk, like April's fleshy whorls. She counts

the green banknotes and puts them in her bag

then turns toward the door. I envy her

spring gait but not the click behind her back

as she steps outside, into merciless light.

2

The man at the corner of Olivier and hope,

following the line of cars piled before red,

is carrying scrolled landscapes under his arm.

He opens one for me to see the sky

despite the frozen profiles behind glass:

no one smiles; no one nods; not a stare. He moves

easily between dismissals. Courage is a gift.

The stench of lassitude follows me home.

3

I rarely leave my home these days. Friends come,

stay for coffee, a few wheat rounds, some cheese.

We speak little of the world beyond ourselves,

yet much is sorrow, the days we've come to know.

It's grim, all of it; even through the laughter

something gnaws at the core, at what's left

unsaid, not knowingly nor out of malice,

only perhaps the dread of a darker soul.

4

Father, leave me time enough to make amends,

not for what I've done, for I regret my sins

and have made my peace in front of you.

There are imperfections in every heart

and you know mine. Teach me not to judge

my brother more harshly than myself;

to grieve without guilt at too much happiness.

Father, forgive me for wanting more than love.

Gwyneth Barber Wood