{"id":17,"date":"2009-05-06T16:57:53","date_gmt":"2009-05-06T20:57:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/crwr\/?p=17"},"modified":"2009-05-07T11:01:27","modified_gmt":"2009-05-07T15:01:27","slug":"nigel-assam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/crwr\/2009\/05\/06\/nigel-assam\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigel Assam"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lapeyrouse<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0
\nFrom my grandfather on,
\nmy family was supposed to be
\nburied in Lapeyrouse Cemetery
\nacross from Queen Victoria Square
\nin Trinidad. Back there,
\nthere’s no family mausoleum.<\/p>\n

I remember his grave,
\nshoots of grass from between stones,
\nthe corners of the cross blunted,
\nand the too narrow street
\nwide enough only for a brougham
\npassing at his feet,
\nat sunset, the chipped curb
\npaled to a dull tropical concrete grey.
\nAfter only ten years, the sea-salted air
\nwas already eroding his name’s inscription
\nand birth date, so illegible
\nlight flattened the stone’s face.
\nOnly ten years!<\/p>\n

No one has died since he died
\nin nineteen seventy-four,
\nexcept his mother.
\nHalf of his children are here in America,
\nmy father among them.
\nMy father hasn’t discussed where
\nhis and my mother’s burial should be,
\nor his brothers’,
\nor any new family plot,
\nor whether they’d be flown back
\nto be buried in Trinidad.
\nCost will make that decision.
\nMy father hasn’t even made his will yet!
\nDoubtless, his two sisters
\nand their families, and his two brothers
\nand their families, and his mother, who all stayed
\nback, will be buried
\nback there in Lapeyrouse
\nalongside my grandfather.
\nFor his children, it’s different:
\nour lives were lived more here
\nin America and less there.
\nMy sister has her own family
\nand certainly will be buried
\nbeside her husband
\nin Florida, where his father died;
\nhe’s already purchased plots
\nand even hopes to move to Florida,
\nsoon! I have neither wife nor child.
\nI’ve played with the idea
\nof cremation and having my ashes
\nthrown into the Atlantic that beaches
\nboth countries.<\/p>\n

My grandfather’s grave, I recall,
\nlooked too small.
\nIt lies in a rehabbed cemetery,
\na block up from which still is
\nthe Electric Ice Factory
\nand, next to that, Trinidad & Tobago Electricity
\nCommission, with its black-rimmed
\nsteel towers that had in bold
\nblack letters T&TEC<\/em>;
\nthey’ve been repainted POWERGEN<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nigel Assam <\/em>received his M.A. from Boston University’s Creative Writing Program and has been working in publishing ever since. He is currently studying for an M.S. in Marketing. Having spent his childhood in Trinidad, he is not as widely published as he’d like to be.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lapeyrouse \u00a0 From my grandfather on, my family was supposed to be buried in Lapeyrouse Cemetery across from Queen Victoria Square in Trinidad. Back there, there’s no family mausoleum. I remember his grave, shoots of grass from between stones, the corners of the cross blunted, and the too narrow street wide enough only for a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[556],"tags":[8844],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/crwr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/crwr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/crwr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/crwr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/crwr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/crwr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/crwr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/crwr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/crwr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}