What creature is this that cometh near
His luggage filled to the brim with fear
Crushing our lives, crushing our beliefs
O whence for me shall bring only griefs
What of the men whom now weep?
What of the woman buried alive in their sleep?
What of the children who once stood brave?
Their minds controlled their souls enslaved
The baneful trumpets sound one by one
Can you hear them or are you numb?
Will you fear the creature of doom?
Come undone?
Or shall you overcome?
Overcome, overcome
Filled to the gunwale are the guns
The creature of the swamp now runs
He runs all things and everyone
The children now walk the plank
All hope sank, hopes sank
The baneful trumpets sound one by one
Can you hear them or are you numb?
Will you fear the creature of doom?
Come undone?
Shall you overcome?
Overcome, overcome
Will you fear the creature of doom?
Will you come undone?
Shall you overcome?
Overcome, shall overcome
Seventeen skiffs and boats tethered
In twos and threes on the river Thames
With their canvas winter shrouds
And rows of seagulls perched on each,
Almost perfectly aligned,
Heads towards honeysuckle skies
Where low winter's sun declines,
Reflected in cold silver flow.
Close by them a solitary heron stands
Stationed on a gunwale,
Some feathers ruffled by a river breeze.
This beholder sees the autumn beauty
And foreboding of a winter's shiver
With its wretched frost and freeze.
Off Terra Firma sixteen weeks now.
My legs take roots; my eyes become infinite.
Past the Tropic of Cancer, the Lesser Antilles.
Talk of brown skinned girls, Purple Clouds of Magellan.
The Southern Cross peeking above the horizon at 18N°.
Those first few nights I stared at the wrong stars in my
confident knowing. A seabird landed
on the gunwale and mocked me, “Sunk now are your
North Star and Great Bear.”
“Sunk now are your North Star and Great Bear.”
I unlock an ancient mystery.
You take shape like a paragon in the sky.
Four beaming stars agleam forming the points of a cross.
Climbing higher and brighter. To be steered upon due south.
By Terra Del Fuego, you are directly above. Your language is universal.
Taking up our stern till we sink into the El Salvadorian night.
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