{"id":37881,"date":"2011-06-20T06:55:07","date_gmt":"2011-06-20T10:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/?p=37881"},"modified":"2011-06-20T06:55:07","modified_gmt":"2011-06-20T10:55:07","slug":"poem-dominica-past-and-present","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/homepage\/features\/poetry\/poem-dominica-past-and-present\/","title":{"rendered":"POEM: Dominica, past and present"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_37883\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-37883\" style=\"width: 173px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-37883\" title=\"gael\" src=\"http:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/gael1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"173\" height=\"152\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/gael1.jpg 237w, https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/gael1-128x113.jpg 128w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 173px) 100vw, 173px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-37883\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gael Jno-Baptiste<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>My isle, you stand tall as the empress of the Caribbean,<br \/>\nYour great beauty, though threatened by your young children,<br \/>\nContinues to attract so many into your wild web of greenery,<br \/>\nWhich reminds us of your peaceful past and present victory.<\/p>\n<p>There was once a time, a time called long ago, but not so long ago,<br \/>\nWhen the elders would sing their rhapsody in your moonlight,<br \/>\nWhile your children contented listened with great amazement,<br \/>\nTo the stories of silly \u201cCompain Zamba\u201d and naughty \u201cCompain Lapin,\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Where are the days of \u201cMerry go round the roses\u201c, and\u201d Aunty Anna\u201c<br \/>\nWhen children were afraid of the \u201cladiabless\u201d and the \u201csoucouyan\u201d?<br \/>\nWhen they bathed in your cool and serene rivers in birthday suit,<br \/>\nWhile the mothers washed, listening to the next village gossip.<\/p>\n<p>What has happened sweet Dominica to all these pleasures?<br \/>\nInternet children who no longer know their history,<br \/>\nPlay Station addicts, who are confined in an airless room,<br \/>\nWhile television becomes the tutor and IPod the guardian.<\/p>\n<p>As a dreadful result of this modern time technology,<br \/>\nChildren, teenagers and youth go out of their place.<br \/>\nBefore, people could be corrected both big and young,<br \/>\nAnd if they were wrong they\u2019d laugh and move on.<\/p>\n<p>No longer, Dominica, can your elders correct your youth,<br \/>\nOr push them to give a helping hand around the house.<br \/>\nThey no longer pick juicy mangoes and hunt birds in bush,<br \/>\nFor they are too busy listening to B.E.T or chatting on Facebook.<\/p>\n<p>My island so lush and beautiful, a little piece of Heaven on Earth,<br \/>\nA ticket of tranquility to those who tread through your forest,<br \/>\nA little of your past still adorns the architecture of your dwellings,<br \/>\nThough the present tries to erase it with its SUV and H.D T.V.<\/p>\n<p>But let\u2019s not forget, that our present will one day be someone\u2019s past,<br \/>\nSo please save \u201cour long ago,\u201d what made our Isle great and special,<br \/>\nLike our Jing ping, the conch shell of a fisherman and our Wob Dwiyet,<br \/>\nLet\u2019s save our Dominica where the past and present intertwine!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gael Jn0-Bapstiste is 12 years old. This poem was the winner in a poetry competition organised by the Association of Dominicans at UVI<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"My isle, you stand tall as the empress of the Caribbean, Your great beauty, though threatened by your young children, Continues to attract so many into your wild web of greenery, Which reminds us of your peaceful past and present&#8230;","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":37883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>POEM: Dominica, past and present  - Dominica News Online<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/homepage\/features\/poetry\/poem-dominica-past-and-present\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"POEM: Dominica, past and present  - 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