Creations/News

Poem

Oleander and Frangipani

Hibiscus...
tropical pink...
oleander and frangipani...
perfuming and painting the air...
So, so long ago...
Equator Boy...
dug out canoe
six inches above the water...
thatched roof school...
alligators sunning themselves
on shores the shade of pumpkin pie...
Voices...
sing songing the afternoon away...
Sun painted children laughing...
running wild then pausing...
as the pain of the older ones
well hidden
but still transmitted
strikes in them
a stilling chord...
How to feed the children?
How to shape their skittering spirits?
Questions hanging in the air
unchased by the riffling wind...
a drinking uncle called "Canadian"
tweaking our equatorial imaginations
never chilled by snow
wondering why he was named after
such an impossibly distant place...
never dreaming where
our bare and skipping feet
would take us
in the fulness of time...
So much history since then...
rolling and disappearing
into the merciless caverns of time...
and these days
children of mine
born above the forty-ninth parallel...
hearing about tropical places
on tv programs
and wondering about
this old guy with the funny accent
from somewhere near the equator...
where they have never yet been...