Nothing is taller than a royal palm
Or straighter than its swelling, waning trunk
Crowned by the fronds which rattle in the wind.
Country of grasses, thronging sugar cane,
And the green thickets of the young bamboo,
No where is quite so spendthrift of its green.
The market air is thick, and the complaints
Of beggars multiply among the mules.
Along the windy Caribbean shore
The smell of dunder from a factory,
Refuse of sugar, satúrates the air
Until the inland plain begins to climb.
Acres of cane, white Squire upon his horse,
His foreman by his side; on hillsides steer,
In other valleys rows of coconuts;
On top a hill, the Georgian great-house stands,
Built for defence two hundred years ago,
Where Squire and Mistress rule behind thick walls.
Further, the cockpit country, where the slaves
Escaped when England took the land from Spain,
And where a tribe still squats, the wild Maroons,
Not subject to Her Majesty’s Appointed.
Here dead men live in silver cottonwoods,
And it is called the land of look-behind.
Over the island heavy with its green
Whose unpremeditated growth is food,
A long Atlantic wind gives canopy.
Upon the wind, great herds of vultures ride
Over the bristling acreage of green,
Where there is always something which is dead.
Leave a Reply