lilAj
Adrian
Ocho RIos
to the earth,
touched by evening come;
a sepia, salt skimmed cratered moon
crawls to the crux of sky
to breathe, to cant-
it cries to the rhythm of tide,
to dark, disheveled hidden
it calls to the lone Patoo’s eyes
to a writer's pen and a shriveled heart;
for this the island thinks it exists
~
for the Heliconias,
harped against the backbone of a Guinepp tree;
their copper sheen, sea green leaves strut over the hedge
like begging palms,
to exist is to
scrape the last rivulets of light from the sky,
to plead with thickening cirrus clouds
to rhumba to coast breeze with fronds on a coconut palm;
they know no other way.
~
a sole hummingbird flutters in the bush,
she has left her forked-twig nest
of spider webs and lichens
to taste the night-dew nectar
from Heliconia’s scarlet bracts-
tomorrow, by the nutmeg tree
a mate will hover at her beak,
the hiss and hum of wing and tail shall
sway her, then she will lay;
for this, she believes she exists
watching this world flood
from an old tree stump;
i hear you ask again,
“why Adrian…
why do you exist ?”
in this moment my answer is certain:
It is to cross the bridge which lines our soul
when starlight’s song wills sleep;
it is to wake when heaven births sun yet
still dream;
it is to unlearn time
and love relentlessly all that is you
for this, I exist
