The Stuff of Dreams...

Glossy green guinepas, spiny red lychee fruit and bags of salty, dried Chinese plums greeted my gaze as paper rustled under the Chinaman’s tobacco-stained fingers while he watched me move from leg to leg, restless to taste of his garden's bounty.

Mangos from a neighbor’s tree, chayote salted and buttered from the stove, thick tuberous yucca fried golden, plates of chicken and rice cooked with capers, olives, tomatoes and spices in a cast iron pot or empanadas swollen with seasoned meat, the baked dough warm against my hand, a side of Maggi's waiting on the plate.

Kids on the steamy sidewalk, calling to

El hombre raspado, his hands filling

paper cones of shaved ice and syrups, sticky sweet against my child's lips.

Caramel-skinned and sweaty

His short-sleeved rolled up white shirt

Gleaming, along with his smile,

in the afternoon's heat.


Some of you requested"the rest of" the previous effort. The original from which it sprang is sadly no more. As with most creative endeavors, things sometimes take on a life of their own and shift in ways I don't always anticipate. I hope you enjoy this and I appreciate your comments.

Poetic Injustice...

Born in one country

Raised in another.

I am at home

Everywhere

and

Nowhere.

Moving house four times before age ten meant

A sea of shifting faces for a quiet kid

Who preferred the solace of a book

To the whispers of her peers

As a child, I only knew that I loved the sounds of thick foliage rustling, rain, frog song and the constancy of cicadas at night, lilting Bajan, rapid-fire Spanish, and old Jamaican ladies clickety-clacking their way home on the train.

This was originally part of a longer poem condemned as being "too prosaic" by a group of English educators. What do you think? Any suggestions for a title?

Until Next Time...