Poems

How can we celebrate Christmas in a mash-up land?

(A Jamaican advent lament and hope)

How can we celebrate Christmas

In a mash-up land, O Lord?

When zinc and sorrow scatter the roads,

And every breeze remembers the storm.

When the people line up for relief

And meet cold clipboards instead of comfort,

Forms instead of fellowship,

Questions instead of care.

How can joy bubble

When the trauma still trembles in our bones?

When mothers still hear the night-wind scream,

And children still jump at the slam of a door,

And fathers stare long at shattered boards

Counting the cost of what they can’t rebuild?

How can we sing “Silent Night”

When the silence in our leaders

Feels louder than compassion?

When mercy seems missing

From the hands that should heal,

And the heart of the nation

Feels bruised by both wind and neglect?

Yet—

In the ruin, a whisper rises.

Not from committees nor from columns of figures,

But from the stable of our own longing.

Come, Lord Jesus,

Born in a manger of mud and straw,

Born under the noise of empire

And the weight of people’s fear—

Come into our mash-up land.

Make known your Incarnate Word

In these broken places,

In shelters that leak both water and tears,

In the long lines of the weary,

In the voices of those unheard.

Come where the zinc curls like wounded wings,

Where hope hangs like wet clothes on a line,

Where the poor still wait

Not just for relief,

But for regard.

Heal our memories,

Hold our trauma,

Turn our disappointment into defiant hope.

And when we ask, “How can we celebrate Christmas

In a mash-up land?”

Teach us to see—

You were born into a mash-up world first,

And it was there your glory broke through.

So come again, Emmanuel.

Not in tinsel, nor in tidy hymns,

But in the raw truth of our longing.

Come,

Lord Jesus—

Be Light in our darkness,

Be Bread in our hunger,

Be Peace in our trembling,

Be God-with-us

In this battered, beloved Jamaica

our land.

– Dudley McLean II

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Jamaica Repent!

Jamaica, Jamaica you have grown

as shown!

You are an adult

It is time to stop the idolatry and evil cult

This must discontinue because this is displeasing to the Lord!

Jamaica! Jamaica! this is not how you were trained

You were brought up in church going to God’s house sun or rain!

Jamaica! Jamaica!

Unity is your strength when you pray

Look at the sun’s rays!

Before times lots of prayers answered “No hurricane”

And now you are seeing my hand!

The National Anthem is even a prayer

In which you ask God to bless the Land.

Now where is the worship from your hand?

Jamaica! Jamaica! Jamaica !

Rise and Wake!

Take a trip to Port Royal and

Remember the quake!

God is real

God will not joke and put up with wickedness & evil deal!

Jamaica! Jamaica!

You are found wanting

God is watching and counting!

This is not the game stop light & go

Repentance is either yes or no

Jamaica! Jamaica! you are just a dot!

God can make you not!

From Great to Small

This poem is for all !

– Paulette Roache