Black River

The hills their belly bleeding brim the flood Of the Black River with red bauxite mud And from the crowded bickering bridge I Faced a silt churning denundated sea And familiar rouged face of evening sky That in boyhood dear as father to me Kept father's memory and how he sprang Poetry from this very bridge, shackled me To sense of feelings while the waters bang In turmoil, where river meets salt of sea. Black River, bay lonely as evening sky Desolate of ships and rich logwood dye Slave and sugar separated by time And still in hope a place bare and sublime