These are the Open Arms
By Cherbo Geeplay
You woke me up when I was dead,
teaching the night stars wantonly
to obey the Atlantic; then slashed
my arteries in flight to Lake Piso,
humbling its boundaries, before
fusing them calmly to a gel.
When the elders speak in parables,
it is a mix of pepper soup which the
fufu welcomes and surrounds. As
the deer is trapped in the undergrowth,
so does it wait to be strapped. —These
are the open arms to the farms, mucking
the deserted mansions decked in chocolate
nuts, covered in honey; the lost spectacles
of yesterday is now over. Once gowned with
cluttered cow-webs and peppered with
shrubs, this, before the revival of the
grimy walls, serenade and greened
with lilies whose aroma calls from
a hundred miles to the carpenter
—the tool man and his bride waiting
to be announced as the sun swell
the hilltops, smiling to the boats
sailing on smooth tides.
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Moving quietly to fair waves,
the clouds crushed, hovers,
washing the mud away,
freeing her from the rocks,
bathing the earth and taking
away the dust disguised as
chaffs. the yacht’s inviting voice
is heard throttling along—between
hearty murmurs, chuckling to the
weaving currents, curving the
Atlantic surf, dancing fervidly,
where the fires meet the pits of
burning woods. The hearth in a
melody on the placid shores of Sinkor,
intimately as Monrovia grins to the Atlantic.
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Bewitched, racing to the beaches
is a sweetening of the surf stones.
The shells humbled under the rocks.
In trance, the turtles are running
with the whales, the currents,
silvery, the smell of saltwater
overpowering, yet elegant. Your
slender sailing finger rubbing
my rough ankles bring comfort.
—You woke me up when
I was dead, teaching
the night stars wantonly
to obey the Atlantic Bay,
like seashells humbled under the rocks.
Copyright 2018, Adelaide Literary, NY
Copyright ©
Cherbo Geeplay
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