for John Hector Robert Lee – poet and friend

 

They ask in strange cities,
weaving words like insults
fired — tongue in cheek —
across your bow:
‘Where you from, Boy!’

Standing upright, legs apart,
your island helmeted
like the fourth horseman,
rides up your beach—
a mirage the sun makes at noon.

Proud nobody from nowhere,
your heart bleeds its love of islands.
On these barnacle-crusted rocks
black sea urchins, your jewels shine.
Sheba and her Nubian eunuch

graces a tableau by Poynter,
denying her race its birthright.

The shadow cast on this canvas
is Dunstan’s, brush in hand, sons
Alwyn and Luigi, the next generation,
reshape moments from nothing—
Giovanni carves in stone.

Our nothings are amber sunsets
to be mined, dawn’s delectable
delights on this shore waits for sea-
crabs to signal new life.
Another crude awakening,

another rude dawn shivers
in shade.

Thank God, you are not alone,
we are not alone.
It’s happening right here,
in our face,

‘Ici Sainte Lucie.’

 

∞

Mac Donald Dixon is a Saint Lucian writer, whose work has been widely published, including in magazines such as Agenda, Bim, Callaloo, Caribbean Quarterly, Link, The Caribbean Writer and Wasafiri.