Sunrise
reaches up, pulling back a
face that looked like trams and top hats,
umbrellas and evening walks
on ocean, not yet built in glass and steel.
A clock marks islanders’ time
on songs of chestnut fire and, bells jingling,
we all laugh happy laughs, all warm inside
though it is never cold here.

Castle walls keep batter-stained memories
in strong, grey slabs,
where trees in wide hallways
mark a coming.
Bulbs,
now dancing across wrought iron fences,
bulbs,
wrapped around branches,
reaching up, reaching out, reaching over laughter and exhaust fumes
into a sun now set, now packed away under
—Three, Two, One
Lights!
I watch with eyes, over a century old
as something shifts
thought

∞

Sharda Patasar is a Trinidadian writer, director, and musician with an interest in cultural studies. In 2023, she became an independent senator in the 12th Republican Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago. This poem was written as part of a workshop hosted by the Trinidad and Tobago Institute of Architects at Killarney, Port of Spain, in November 2023.