After the Storm (Sint Maarten, 2018)

The Boardwalk’s mosaic of pink and grey

Frames a vacant vista, asleep at hot midday;

Bare-sparred boats, like drunkards lay

Bone-white and gleaming upon the azure bay.

A pye-dog pants in an almond’s purple lee,

Grateful to meet a live and leaf-crowned tree;

O’er mugs and magnets, cowry beads, tacky tees,

Shopkeeps lean, uneasy, looking out to sea.

Fresh-clothed, the houses, in florid hues, raked clean

The alleys, the palm-fronds shooting green;

Fragrant with salt and peace, the landward breeze –

Blows in a Princess or the Sovereign of the Seas?

No! On the blue beyond the beachfront pale,

No liner looms, nor heaves a yachtsman’s sail;

Barren, ‘tis, as the dust beneath the acacia’s thorny veil,

And silent as the insects before the fateful gale.

An Age of easy gold and neon light,

Blood, drums, and witching eyes a’glow in sweltering night,

Dissolves into memory, as the sand drinks the rain,

Leaving yet a sweet perfume, and a wet and wine-dark stain.

The Pelican roosts, the red Flamboyant blooms,

Unsold trinkets gather dust, and the maids sweep empty rooms;

Looted store and raided resort

More than stormwinds scourged the blossom’d port;

Hands that scorned to plant the soil

Stealing the fruits of their brethren’s toil.

The brazen spark in the Old Man’s eye –

Would he fume and froth or, smiling, sigh?

The Winds of Change have blasted by,

But that dreaming Island will never die.

. . .

Published by Michael Warenycia