Martinique: midnight nearing!
Along the winding fringe of overgrown
I, with Miranne courtly walking;
from among, a cold caution comes crawling.
Our senses, their edges sharpen-
all
but the dead voice of the Sand-box tree, we hear.
Morne Vert, masked in its ponderous mist
uneases our eyes,
stifles the stars icicle light,
installs a ‘goliath' ring
around a young yellow moon;
soon, our path
through a ‘darwin world' darkens-
evolves (one hundred ways) a place to away
make haste.
Head-on and howling
a wolfing wind inhales our pace:
from either sunken side, hidden wings scamper,
hard-back trees bend,
bearded branches screech,
hanging vines
clasp tightly, their curved spines to choking hosts;
our course to Carbet
tangles in the fragrance of Wild Olive.
The mêlée, to joint fear deepens;
my knees, ‘to the bone' weaken-
floating there- zigzagging down the cloggy air,
a Magpie's tail-feather appears; spreads
its distressing message upon a bed of withered leaves.
On Mirane's câpresse visage, another shade latches;
to her petit posture, a disturbing mood shapes.
Arms criss-crossed her vested chest,
rubs the rigor from her slender smooth shoulders-
both beautiful blades aglow,
walks a Florence lady lamp, down the damp ‘brek neck' black,
stoops (a Louvre-like statuette) at the rivulet's pebbled bank,
and over its faint reflection of heaven,
blankly into nowhere- the farthest far stares.
From quite long, a quiet,
the curtain-fog lifts, and the belly of the valley clears:
a flicker- a flutter- tinted moths in flurry clutter;
a crock- a spiky whistle- mating calls of all grades gather;
above me, in the Chardette tree
an albino owl lands, setting surely, a eerie stage.
Curve by curve,
her shrunken form unfolds, her kinky hair lengthens
unveiling its three Cowrie shells held.
Goosepimples grow peaks on my stiffened skin
as a new species of horror beholds me- she
deaf to my countless yells, yields to the flowing uncertainty.
Waist-deep wet, anti-clockwise turning;
a worrying mixture of two worlds wearing,
collects any aquatic cure from its narrow snaking floor;
an route alternate- eons choosing,
reads (stone to stone) her swaying way up, till she,
an encrypted poem
stands from me, a half second away.
Eyes wide open- brows raised,
their full hazel gaze pointing deep into helpless mine;
murmurs a mix of nasal French and d'enfant Anglais,
the quatrain, too strong a concoction to disobey.
"Touch moi,
where much, my love lives.
Touch moi ici, and see what hot
my Antillean soul gives".
The air, by her tea-leaf whispers, its chilliness loses;
a desire feverish and forest-dense
whisks up the path of my shortening breath-
every findable corner of my oven chest fills.
The ‘growing amorous' disorder
sends my fox-trotting heart racing to a risky gallop;
groping on my south-paw side,
my semi-bolted fingers review line by line by line
those prophetic words-
in almost no time, they steam with a stuttering sweat,
flood thick with liquid life,
fuel-up with a burning, barely bearable love.
Taken on Intimate Temptation,
they reach their highest ever Fahrenheit,
un-fists their five scarlet tips
to answer in one visible voice- the phantom fire
within her near-molten bosom rises.
Way out ‘on a limb' laced with Loa,
spells predating Christianity licking lavishly on my peppery lips,
my once firm grip on logic loosens-
slides into a quizzical hunger
for the harmony swarming on her boiling breath.
Like a ‘je ne sais pas ' possessed,
I chop through the bamboo-broad thoughts of taboo
to enter the sacred animist circle.
My throat, from dragging chains of shock unlock,
and draws down its lungs a ghostly gasp.
Signing-away silence; I ask of high providence,
"Coat me onward with care!"
Bold-
Febrile- a drumming in the darkest distance,
unleashes Papa Legba's ancient echo;
words weaved into an untamed rhythm
reawakens the forest family of spirits-
balances our bodies with inseparable nature.
Alast, the hour ‘ultima'!
our souls swell to an enormous bliss; softly, into oblivion
the curséd space between us slips.
Holding
a blazing furnace of intense and defatiguable beauty,
freely, I become her ‘quimbois' kiss.
