from "Omeros" by Derek Walcott

BOOK SIX

Chapter XLIV

I

In hill-towns, from San Fernando to Mayagüez,

the same sunrise stirred the feathered lances of cane

down the archipelago’s highways. The first breeze

rattled the spears and their noise was like distant rain

marching down from the hills, like a shell at your ears.

In the cool asphalt Sundays of the Antilles

the light brought the bitter history of sugar

across the squared fields, heightening towards harvest,

to the bleached flags of the Indian diaspora.

The drizzling light blew across the savannah

darkening the racehorses’ hides; mist slowly erased

the royal palms on the crests of the hills and the

hills themselves. The brown patches the horses had grazed

shone as wet as their hides. A skittish stallion

jerked at his bridle, marble-eyed at the thunder

muffling the hills, but the groom was drawing him in

like a fisherman, wrapping the slack line under

one fist, then with the other tightening the rein

and narrowing the circle. The sky cracked asunder

and a forked tree flashed, and suddenly that black rain

which can lose an entire archipelago

in broad daylight was pouring tin nails on the roof,

hammering the balcony. I closed the French window,

and thought of the horses in their stalls with one hoof

tilted, watching the ropes of rain. I lay in bed

with current gone from the bed-lamp and heard the roar

of wind shaking the windows, and I remembered

Achille on his own mattress and desperate Hector

trying to save his canoe, I thought of Helen

as my island lost in the haze, and I was sure

I’d never see her again. All of a sudden

the rain stopped and I heard the sluicing of water

down the guttering. I opened the window when

the sun came out. It replaced the tiny brooms

of palms on the ridges. On the red galvanized

roof of the paddock, the wet sparkled, then the grooms

led the horses over the new grass and exercised

them again, and there was a different brightness

in everything, in the leaves, in the horses’ eyes.

Ian Berry. 2000. Bangladesh. Magnum Photos.

Conversation
by Ai

for Robert Lowell

We smile at each other

and I lean back against the wicker couch.

How does it feel to be dead? I say.

You touch my knees with your blue fingers.

And when you open your mouth,

a ball of yellow light falls to the floor

and burns a hole through it.

Don’t tell me, I say. I don't want to hear.

Did you ever, you start,

wear a certain kind of silk dress

and just by accident,

so inconsequential you barely notice it,

your fingers graze that dress

and you hear the sound of a knife cutting paper,

you see it too

and you realize how that image

is simply the extension of another image,

that your own life

is a chain of words

that one day will snap.

Words, you say, young girls in a circle, holding hands,

and beginning to rise heavenward

in their confirmation dresses,

like white helium balloons,

the wreaths of flowers on their heads spinning,

and above all that,

that’s where I’m floating,

and that’s what it’s like

only ten times clearer,

ten times more horrible.

Could anyone alive survive it?

"Highway In Autumn" - A Poem

When it came it came suddenly, and short—
something lonesome and deep,
calling to him from deep in his heart,
something involving highways and a few autumn leaves.

He wanted to transport to those places of distance.
Wine gave the illusion of that.
Rain on a windowsill did, too.
But always he woke on the same couch wearing the same shoes.

If only he could stay there, outside the window,
chilly autumn clouds, walking that highway with his arms
wrapped in self-embrace, a few notes of music lilting in the air,
coming from somewhere—

"New York, Mid-Afternoon" - A Poem

It was one of those wet-hot days,
bright brief summer shower
soaked every inch of concrete
as if the sky were cleansing the sins
like scabs off the city's skin.

Muggy. Puddles everywhere, reflecting gold.
Women staring like I was the long-lost brother
they'd been trying to find for years.
Deliberate footwork, pointing my toes around curbs and cabs.
Self-conscious.

Suddenly I realized I'd sailed from January to June.
For a moment I was lifted to a higher realm—
a kind of reshaping of existence.
Where do I go from here? I thought.
Then it was gone.

"The Judgment" - A Poem

At the gate of heaven he was approached by angels,
seven of them, with large wings that flapped slowly
and created a thick, warm wind.
He stretched his neck,
looking up at golden bars which rose as high as he could see.
Clouds and a golden spray of light covered everything.

An angel asked the others, “And what of this one?”
“Yes,” they responded, “he is to be judged now.”
“And did he lie?” the first angel asked.
“Yes,” they responded, “he lied.”
“And did he steal?” the first angel asked.
“Yes,” they responded, “he stole.”
“And did he cheat, and swear, and hate?” the first angel asked.
“Yes,” they responded, “he did all those things.”
“And was he selfish, and lustful, and proud, and gluttonous, and full of envy?”
“Yes, they responded, “he was all those things.”
“And did he love?” the first angel asked.
“Yes,” they responded, “he loved.”
“Then part ways, and let him enter.”