Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Fisherman, St. Croix

Published in The Caribbean Writer Volume 29.

Tonio, old Puerto Rican fisherman, says, “I smell rain,” stops in his garden tracks, points a cracked finger toward the blue humid sky, then cocks his head and eye to the inner ear and bids me, listen
to the Bananaquit’s song, tiny yellow-bellied bird, its quippering pitch and flittering wings above my head, halo etched in memory, now inside my body, St. Croix, island, a silent soliloquy, rooting me in
flamboyant trees, great canopies just beginning to bloom, bright red in the heat along with June mangos.

No comments:

Post a Comment