After poems, psalms. And canticles of island pilgrims
passing through self-important harbours, smoke-blue banana valleys,
villages lounging at the curves of bougainvillea lanes. Faith limns
your life salted by Atlantic trades, fretting with Creole violons,
the children gone to hard rock malls of Kingston and Flatbush.
O - in the beloved corner shrines of mango blossom, breadfruit palm, almonds' broad oval
leaf, the chapels of sidewalks' hasty awnings, the confessionals of indignant
minivans, the fuming censer of the streets' sulphur speech -
O, at every wary block - His Real Presence, and archangels gossiping of
His parousia. After poems, psalms. And your canticles.
(c) John Robert Lee. from Elemental: new and selected poems. Peepal Tree Press, 2008.
Photo (c) John Robert Lee. "After lunch" (2010).
