_ for the late Owen Seymour Arthur,
Prime Minister of Barbados Sept. 6, 1994 to Jan. 15, 2008
In the land of wood, water and levity,
we roamed, as young men do, but separately.
I joined him after Michael’s defeat in 1980.
We came home in fear and doubt, to face
a fractured fraternity, a weight of uncertainty:
how to chart the course of our prized university?
But Owen, the Seer, with steadfast will,
imagined a Beacon on top of the Hill.
No academic backwater, no wading
in the shallows. Time to launch out, to make bold:
university graduates in every household!
Use the land, spread our borders,
bring our brothers and our sisters
from all across the Caribbean sea.
Make the top of the Hill a CSME!
What a Captain, what a journey
as I partnered with him,
where his vision for his people never grew dim!
But then came the darkness,
the sting of rejection, the loosening hold
on the dreams he’d held dear.
Weary and wounded, hounded and hunted,
he came to his Hill and found refuge there.
Professor of practice, leader of renown,
you have been called to a higher home.
And I, who was there for part of the journey,
was there for you in the end, my friend.