My sweet boy
As you grow
Floating in your mother’s
Swelling Sea-belly
As my soul swells
With this new feeling
Blossoming in my heart
Like the July-tree
Humming into red twilight
There are some things
One or two really
That I need to shed
My Iguana tail
Telling of the years I have lived
And the things I know
Under the gaze
Of our Insular Sea
Men like me
Like you will be
Yearn to know
The sight
Of the turtle
With her wrinkled
Old-man accordion neck
And her
Sweet salt-tears
Shedding the weight
Of her cherished clutch
On the sparkling black sand
Of Rosalie, of Madura
And that of
The Cachalot
The sperm whale
Our Caribbean Giant
Whose saucer-eyes
Glitter
Like the loose eye of God
And the eyes of the tiger shark
Black like that of a doll
As she travels through
Mare Nostrum
Her striped saddle
Heavy with pups
You will know them
My sweet boy
And they will sound
Like the tern’s sad laughter
Or the misty exhort
Of the baby humpback
You will know
The sweet good-morning
Of the bois canelle
Or the wet pimento tree
Of your mother’s soil
While the coral gardens
Our aquatic cathedrals
Await your worship
And you will know
My Sweet boy
The finger roots
Of nervous mangroves
Looking wearily
At the African Coast
While the seagrass meadows sway
In currents unforeseen
Like a siren’s emerald hair
You will know the Pelican
With their belly-beaks
Twirling above your father’s
Acrid sandbank home
And the pink promise
Of the conch shell’s
Curling lip
Queen of the Sands
You will know
The mischievous grins
Of spinning dolphin
You will swim
With squadrons
Of melancholic eagle rays
The Caribbean Sea
Mare Nostrum
Our islands
String of pearls
Emerald Amnion
But as our waters warm
And our cathedrals bleach
And the winds
That tick-tick
palm fronds
Spin into
Destructive Fury
And as you learn
This sea
With her moods and her
Blinding Colours
She is yours
She is My
Our
Eternal womb
Lanmè Nou
Which has shaped us
Formed us
Since the day
Pirates fell in love
With corpulent manatees
This Caribbean
You shall know her well
With her smell of sea-grapes
And her groundswell
But more than knowing
It is up to us
West-Indians
To embrace and
Ensure that her blue bosom
Will continue to
Nurture
Because just as you now
Swim in your mother’s
Belly-sea
Our Caribbean
Is the belly-sea
Of all of humanity