Ducky, thanks for being here
Landmark man,
Thanks for the connection to my past
They need glass and steal
I need familiar things,
Things that mean and things that last
Old friendships, old rivalries in feats
The fragrant mornings
And birds self-satisfied singing
Before the naseberry trees are shaken
Something in those days
Our teeth in the cane stalk tearing
The fish on the spear point dangling
The girls across the fence skipping
The task and chores to idle
In the dreams we had without bridle
Something in those days
Says memory has a deeper purpose than mere recall
Says human bonds are fragile
And yet, and yet, has power over the living breath.
Ducky, friendship is repository, a sterling vault
An ocean in which memory keeps no fault.
I thought of you but did not know how to write
All the things collecting dust inside a heart
Since the walls of boyhood crumbled, and we apart
No longer come slushing through the mud tonight.
I have kept naseberry seasons with juice sweet
As an old man's passion, running down the cheeks
I have chewed cold joints of sugarcane, the feet
Of old empires grown proud where new mercy seeks
My peace. And this different from the day's quiet
End when on beds of sand we woke our dreams, met
The coming of our hope in the eyes of girls yet
Blooming like mangoes in may. Life is today a diet
Of choices, and we are doom unless we obey; and I
Should obey those inner voices for seasons dry
Longing now: and that was when orange rind made
The only tears that two young extroverts displayed.
I have tasted mangoes that cling
Their sweetness to my tongue.
I have seen the white heron's wing
Beating the air like a lung.
I have ate custard apples spiced
With heaven's honey. And cooler than
The dew-drenched Otaheite enticed
A boy's fancy, sweet rivers ran
Their insect strewn fingers through
The deep curves of the land. O juicy,
Delicious moments! The cue
Was the canary singing its prose
In naseberry trees. I hear it still,
And the flattery of my my nose
Is not real. Dudley, Ver, Boysie will
Not be playing in the yard. The white
Thatch that weaves the baskets soul,
The moon rising and turning gold
Are memories of a long distant night.
Surefooted, sure fisted,razor tough
If I should fight that war again
I would want one for the going rough
Like yourself,
Fair and fractured
When the friendship slough
No claim to be a paragon of anything
Just an average man in your own eyes
While I hoisted you like a kite
Above naseberry trees and bush
Above the gormandizing sea
Above the Compound's red mud
Carrying the archeological memory
Of man's life like a sud
A mere consequence of a theory's lie
It was your mating urge that first
Lured you into the systems net
Thereafter your life became troubled
Wandering around the wilderness of regret
Framed like a pirate's ghost
Stereotyped and labeled
I still do not think you guilty of their crime
Your demonization came before your destruction
And when you died
I cried and cried at such a useless end
My fearless friend would never be at my back again
But tears will water pain, and still brings nothing back.
Don, tell me again
How to get from Homehill to Ironshore
How to wring sugarcane in hot sunshine
And get new rum.
Don, tell me again
How to swim across the canal,
With hook and line and clothes
And find the ripe naseberry tree
The birds are crying from
Don, tell me again
For I have sat here all evening long
Listening to hear you call
To meet and cluster in the sandbed
As every boy would do
But out of the silence only comes
The waves of the sea
The tides lonely hum
Don, tell me again
Life from birth to death is not vain
That all our passions were not for this
A futile fumble in the head
To rage and wage, and then we are dead
Our only solace the magic of it
The thing we could not understand
The dream like rum in our head
Don, tell me again
That now we are all gone
You feel non pain
And over and over the sea
Like a voice through the willow
Calling me
O, but why should I return
In silence to die
For this could not be the plan
When we were born ... just to die
Then what is living for? Only love,
No bigger purpose, would be a lost
Love must say more at all cost
Don, tell me again
A man's faith in God cannot be vain
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