The blistering sun
broke into sobs

as blood flowed
from veins of leaves.

Brown doves flew out to sea,
and earthworms crawled
from soil.

They had to escape…
Concrete.

I see those mountains again
where mist hangs perpetually
even under smelted iron
in the woolen Jamaican sky.
She stands silent, though brown doves
are talking unheard and unseen
within umbrageous places.
Passing by this island’s way
I hear rustled chattering
and reflect on my golden land
where Hyarima loved and died.

How similar the calmness
of El Tucuche in Trinidad
with Rasta highlands made noisy
by moisture-burdened trade winds
among trees and flowering shrubs.
These tease senses with fragrances
of woodland pine, rotted bark,
and cured, smoked leaves of ganja.

Behind the blue veil, green waves curl,
and below her skirts, life throbs
in wombs of cities and villages.
Across rivers and streams, I hear
the echo of Hyarima
miles away, across the Caribbean Sea,
from the heartbeat of Maroons.
They had broken away from devils’ chains
and fled to its shaded forests
and primordial undergrowth
of bamboo, ferns, and tangled vines.

Those mountains to which swallowtails
make their way from the Rio Grande,
and waterways fill up to banks
from bursting clouds over her head,
will caress memory long after
the iron bird takes off
from the presence of her majesty.

Happiness lives
in the tomorrow of now.
Find it
before today fades.

To be mortal is to have reprieve
in the love of simple things
and forgiveness, having been forgiven.
It is being you, a unique spirit
alone in decisions of conscience
knowing that no one else can duplicate
your feelings for life,
or hunger for salvation
in achievements of aspirations and ambition;
to quench thirst for realization
of dreams and be redeemed
in pleasures of occupation and relaxation .
reaching higher and higher,
uplifting the self to a loftier space
that’s soft and kind to a restless mind,
always wondering, searching for the cause of existence
and purpose of one’s passage on this earth.
To be mortal is to know that salvation
comes from the mind at peace with actions of the day,
charity given for the sake of it
and no hard feelings stayed to stain the frail lining
of what the temple hides.
It is to accept one’s frailties
as ties that bind one to a higher self:
the human and the God on the boardwalk
of this mysterious existence.