And the man said: this one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh! She is to be called woman
[Gen 2:23]
THE WAY IT IS
Gender gender goose and gander
What on earth is there to wonder
Boys are the males
And girls are the females
When these two meet as divinely
Ordained life goes on
In hill-towns, from San Fernando to Mayagüez,
the same sunrise stirred the feathered lances of cane
down the archipelago's highways. The first breeze
rattled the spears and their noise was like distant rain
marching down from the hills, like a shell at your ears.
In the cool asphalt Sundays of the Antilles
the light brought the bitter history of sugar
across the squared fields, heightening towards harvest,
to the bleached flags of the Indian diaspora.
The drizzling light blew across the savannah
darkening the racehorses' hides; mist slowly erased
the royal palms on the crests of the hills and the
hills themselves. The brown patches the horses had grazed
shone as wet as their hides. A skittish stallion
jerked at his bridle, marble-eyed at the thunder
muffling the hills, but the groom was drawing him in
like a fisherman, wrapping the slack line under
one fist, then with the other tightening the rein
and narrowing the circle. The sky cracked asunder
and a forked tree flashed, and suddenly that black rain
which can lose an entire archipelago
in broad daylight was pouring tin nails on the roof,
hammering the balcony. I closed the French window,
and thought of the horses in their stalls with one hoof
tilted, watching the ropes of rain. I lay in bed
with current gone from the bed-lamp and heard the roar
of wind shaking the windows, and I remembered
Achille on his own mattress and desperate Hector
trying to save his canoe, I thought of Helen
as my island lost in the haze, and I was sure
I'd never see her again. All of a sudden
the rain stopped and I heard the sluicing of water
down the guttering. I opened the window when
the sun came out. It replaced the tiny brooms
of palms on the ridges. On the red galvanized
roof of the paddock, the wet sparkled, then the grooms
led the horses over the new grass and exercised
them again, and there was a different brightness
in everything, in the leaves, in the horses' eyes.
You've heard about the Monday Blues ❧✿❧ well this is Monday WRites (musing on the definition here of rite, as any customary observance or practice eg the rite of afternoon tea). Honouring 1992-Nobel Laureate, St Lucia born Derek Walcott [1930-2017] ❧✿❧ Welcome to Monday WRites #101 ❧✿❧ No poem from me today ❧✿❧ What's your mood like today ❧✿❧ I invite you to link in with one of your WRites
Weekend Mini Challenge: Thought Animals
Today Kim has challenged us - Today’s challenge is to choose an animal, any animal you like, and turn it into a poem about a poem, writing in quatrains and following as closely as you can the process of writing a poem.
You've heard about the Monday Blues ❧✿❧ well this is Monday WRites (musing on the definition here of rite, as any customary observance or practice eg the rite of afternoon tea).
Welcome to Monday WRites #100, ❧✿❧ What's your mood like today ❧✿❧ I invite you to link in with one of your WRites
Process Note
After reading a few days ago Candy Don't Come In Gray by Roslyn Carrington, and attending a meet-the-author session with my book club; i was inspired to write this poem about my favourite character in the book 'MATTIE'. This poem is not saying that this is all there is to Roslyn's Mattie, but rather my impression, meeting and observing Mattie in a very brief encounter in one of the chapters of the book. I'm sharing in response to Fireblossom's prompt
You've heard about the Monday Blues ❧✿❧ well this is Monday WRites (musing on the definition here of rite, as any customary observance or practice eg the rite of afternoon tea).
Welcome to Monday WRites #99, ❧✿❧ What's your mood like today ❧✿❧ I invite you to link in with one of your WRites
EVER WONDERED HOW THE FIRST ORCHID GOT THERE...JUST SAYING
When the salt torched her skin, she shrieked like ten thousand banshees bumping into age-old trees in the jungle. They has banished her to the heart of the jungle, calling her a witch. Only because the King (i don't remember his name now) loved her so much. She was the most beautiful woman in her tribe. (i dont rightly remember the name of her tribe now either)
She knew then for sure, they didn't want her around anymore. Her pride was hurt, and her heart was beating lapses of lemons. Not even Anancy in all his trickery mastery, could revenge her, she thought. So she withered, right there in the jungle.
epiphyte - A plant, such as a tropical orchid or a staghorn fern, that grows on another plant upon which it depends for mechanical support but not for nutrients. Also called aerophyte, air plant.
Today Magaly gave us a list of really really funny titles, and asked us to be inspired to write a poem or story after choosing one from her given list. I chose: #12. People Who Don’t Know They’re Dead: How They Attach Themselves
to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It, by Gary Leon Hill
ORANGE BUTTERFLY
orange butterfly -
flight of fanciful thoughts spin
the stuff of dreams
"Ah I see you have cut off your dread locks. You look very handsome. I was just about to get dressed for church. Would you like to go to church with me. We can carry the gran with us. I will have to get her ready though.
I have never seen you with your hair cut this low. Do you remember when we first met? Your hair was styled in a blown out Afro. You looked handsome then too. But I like this older more somber, matured look.
After being apart for so long and living with this longing to see you, it was so shocking to see you in grey dreadlocks. I had seen photos you sent to your mother when the dreadlocks were still young-looking.
One of your friends had met me on Frederick Street one day. She told me she had seen you in Brooklyn and she was shocked at how old you looked. She said,she had stopped to talk to you and when she was finished talking to you and walked away. Her little grandson of five asked her. Granny is that your grandfather. I smiled at that story. Still not in my wildest imaginings ever thinking I would see you looking this way.
I couldn't grieve at Uncle Lincoln's funeral. Not because I wasn't sad at his passing. No, not so at all. I couldn't grieve because I was so happy to lay eyes on you again. Isn't life strange? A happy family - was that too much of me to ask of life?
Maybe this was your uncle's way of saying to me I know how much you love your husband. Be happy. Don't be sad."
The light of morning is my gift on returning from dreamscape; where colours are real, only more intense and longing is etched, only deeper.
You've heard about the Monday Blues ❧✿❧ well this is Monday WRites (musing on the definition here of rite, as any customary observance or practice eg the rite of afternoon tea).
Welcome to Monday WRites #99, ❧✿❧ What's your mood like today ❧✿❧ I invite you to link in with one of your WRites
