On third voyage five centuries ago
sailed the Spanish Main a Queen’s fleet south-west,
and the age of discovery’s great glow
shone upon caravels in ocean quest.
Into island passage beyond gulf trail
through Boca del Dragon on landing wave
led the Genoan’s flagship under sail -
safe travelled and spared a jagged reef’s grave.
“Behold far Indies, land of sun and realm -
by crown and Royal Warrant I claim thee!”.
That virgin New World, that far crossing helm,
these possession Isles of the Trinity.
In a mariner’s tale there’s one true love -
sea and tide below and the stars above.
Written: December 1995
The words of sea
although adventurous,
rapturous, salty ...
They are also aware how to be sweet
and homemade ...
They are fon of waves,
of huge vacancies
of adventure...
But they also perform
calm, lull,
at low tide ...
The words of sea,
they are ships, they are caravels ...
Sands, conches, shells ...
Abandoned tranquil islands,
standing water backwaters
immensity of oceans ...
The words of sea,
are towering,
sailors ... sail
and sail ...
Days, months, years,
don't vanish ...
Always come back
to the land ...
The sea takes them, the sea brings them ...
The sea leaves them at the edge of the pier ...!
Into a frail boyhood,
The moment seizes us
More than we grasp
Its shady edges.
Little by little,
We undress the bruised knees
And the warm wounds
To the grown-up day
That winks at the kites.
Take one handful of bitterness
And some silver frowns
Throw them into the face
Of the undimmed wheel
And the splashes of summer laughter.
The homes are opening up in the mist
like grief of figures
with eyes, opened up to the sea tract.
The walls are crumbling, to this evening
groaning with strength.
Who is shouting there?
Who is building fire on the shore?
The oars were dying of the sweat.
The sails were torn by the winds
dead.
Did they bring ebony and silk,
myrrh and emeralds from Lepanto?
They remained with ashes of the sea,
with corns,
with grief, resembling anchor.
On winding, light-footed caravels
captains are shouting on the deserted shore
and building
Epiphany sacrificial fires.
When I write this moon on my eyes
Who will read?
In what language will you discover
Your surprise
At the boundary of words
Babel high between you and I?
My moon is my only representation
Of what I believe
The full value of my understanding
Of rising stars and falling leaves
Pictures to embrace
So alien to your tactless taste.
To understand me the invisble today
You become me
No clock of periodisation to sway
No stagnant unit
Of analyses confining me to yesterday
The unshelling od love.
To understand me - comfort zones disallowed
You must accept
My table at the rim of your history
Is only marginal
Memory since Colombus caravels sailed
My moon was not impaled.
I do not write of trees today
Rain forests doomed from the first time
The caravels slant across the bay
I do not hear bird songs
Silking sunset or dawn
Today I am warrior
I am on the streets of London too
For more from democracy is due
Not just a voice anymore
But a place we never had before
At the table of equals
Reversing the minus sum of history.
And If I die here
If I never return to feel your body
Where I poured my love before
Then mark my grave with a tree
And let a blackbird cry for me.
My island slept for years in the care
Of Tainos, Caribs and Arawak
Their canoes on the sea breast bare
Dreaming of milk from manioc
The swamps unscarred, trees secure
Batos and songs rinsed in the azure.
Then came doom laden caravels came
Prancing with Conquistadores
Their swords to slaughter, then to shame
The Ave Marias slutted by whores
Whose blazing balls of canons denied
The sufficient death of the crucified.
My island was the Mary Magdalene held
For ransome in the frying lust
For gold, the continental wars spelled
A trembling virginity in the dust
A lost of idyllic grace, where bloody men
Sowed the evil inherited again and again.
From Spanish to French, Spanish to British
How callous is all history
A spectre publishing the marginal brutish
Shrivelled glory of identity.
And still my Mary, her alabastor box a gift
This tropic wonder, this lignum vitae of thrift
From empty tomb to broken hearted disciple
Evanglizes the Mahoe dawn
Over the Blue Mountain where peace ripple
On the motto, still the fawn
In the forest brings the stag to court
This island stands ready to file a good report.
One of the four sons of a wool-weaver,
Christopher Columbus became a great navigator,
who went to sea to learn the sailor's skills
and later to discover a land filled with riches;
rejected by The King of Portugal, he appealed
to the Republic of Genoa and Venice...to return empty-handed!
Finally, King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella of Spain
agreed to make him the " Admiral of the Seas ",
and Columbus departed from Palos, Portugal with three caravels:
the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria for a slow and long voyage...
to find spices, and gold in mines and rivers and in other places;
and when one of his sailors sighted land,as if in a mirage,
Columbus thought he had reached the East Indies,
not realizing he had discovered the New World's shores!
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