Dispatch from Fantasy Island 02
Dear Traveller,
Strange what gets in the way.
Words,
silence, distance,
closeness.
Recollection.
All the color or the black and white.
Doubt.
Do you remember when we met?
The way I looked at you the last time we were close?
There was a song playing.
I can’t seem to find a single picture of the two of us, together.
I wish I had one.
The sun has truly scorched the earth.
Hear.
Scattered gunshots in the distance late at night.
Overseers boots.
Left-right, left, right, left.
Sacred sound is felt rather than heard.
That sweet silence escapes me now.
Thump-thump in my chest.
Heartbeat.
Hard beat rhythm
like the drums pulsing underneath the stick man dance.
Bubbling, bubbling
until the KACK of the warriors clash causes the drummer to change the tempo.
In my family we steep like boiling frogs.
What if I die here?
Is this how I spend my last days?
Are these my last days?
The air flutters in my lungs, heart lifts out of my chest.
I have to catch my breath.
My heart is racing, escaping hummingbird’s wings.
I cannot hear myself think past the pulse in my ear.
Sometimes I forget how to breathe.
I live in chaos.
The house is only stilled by guilt and grief.
The silence here is never peaceful.
Bougainvillea blossoms spilling over the city’s high walls like blood in the streets.
Rats spilling out of the sewers, nesting in fine linens.
Savannah dust.
Sahara dust.
Memory.
Rot.
Dry Season.
Guava Season.
Cold and windy,
Winter.
Masked, masked, masked.
The hills slowly turn brown,
Then, comes another silence.
A silence that feels complete, a silence as vast as the ocean and just as present.
A timeless silence, ancient and knowing.
Breezes from the North, South and East bring history and the future.
On dust.
On fire.
They say we are made of dust and to dust we will return
but for just one life
I’d like to spring up from the soil of my six foot nap,
leaving tendrils of roots in my wake
til I rise to break through the soil
and from there raise my arms to the breeze.
Fingers stretched across the seas.
The eastern Caribbean is one long chain of active and extinct volcanoes.
Magma percolating towards the surface.
I am one of these sparks.
The earth quakes.
Shifting soil, breaking beach.
Trembling, quivering hope.
All the Gods have come true.
On this blessed rock,
the lights of the highway stretch out like a galaxy.
I land.
Out here, alone.
I can finally take a deep breath.
I’ve travelled to the very centre to write this.
From this bright spot,
sometimes you can see so much sky out here.
Sometimes all blue.
Scene spread out
like a canvas of blue hues and scattered fluffy clouds rolling across the plains.
So much sky, you forget where you are.
Most of all that you see is sky.
The possibilities are endless.
Fluff blowing around, all over, everywhere.
Birds carefully build their nests, choosing soft and sturdy bits, just so.
Frogs riot in the thinning riverbed,
Butterflies flirt and clap their wings together.
Orchids bloom.
Gingers rise like arrows from the underbrush.
Hummingbirds rest under citrus flowers.
So many treasures in the garden.
Even the lotus blooms,
While hunters
Plant bodies in the forest.
Red howlers chorus.
Sunsets are dusty pink and burnt orange.
We burn tobacco maize manioc bayleaf and incense.
Singing for the rain.
I watch it tumble down the range,
roll across the plains and snuff the cane fires out.
Ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.
Croton plants everywhere prefer the full sun.
The amount of sun the plant receives fuels the intensity of its color.
To attain its full color the plant should remain in good light.
Pantropical and diverse.
Perennial, dance of endless rebirth.
A complex taxonomic group of plants ranging from herbs and shrubs to trees.
Hiding in plain sight, the croton is a medicine and a poison.
In the Amazon, the red latex from the special C. lechleri, known as sangre de drago (dragon’s blood), is used as a “liquid bandage”.
Before science, the planet provided the fruit, provided the seed, provided the root.