It was early as warm-hearted, cold-nighted December,
Robin, the weather-soothsayer, his ominous oracle did
foretell,
observing the sky...warned, "Expect evil weather...
nineteen eighty-seven will be bone-dry and hot
as in hell."
Softly and gently the moist morning dew-drops,
upon the oppressed buds, condensed, they lay;
evaporated like arid desert tear-drops
on the cheeks of a parched dry-season day,
while it anxiously awaits the blessed rain-drops
of a hopeful, messianic month of May.
The immortelle and poui their blooms they did shed
to cover the ground, coloured pink, yellow, red,
the frogs, the toads and crapauds croaked and cried
and watched as their resident water-holes dried,
the capuchin monks, they prayed, howled and begged,
the iguana's egg-laden belly, in the sand, dragged,
low-legged;
but the tyrannical sun he refused to relent,
and the errant rain-clouds they refused to repent,
the cicada called 'til his wing-beat burst his
belly-drum
and still the rains, they refused to come.
Then one fateful March morning it finally happed.
An illiterate, ignorant, idiotic infidel insect,
perhaps
a firefly or bug or loathsome, two-legged crawler,
struck ferocious flint to spark tender tinder,
shouting, "Burn baby, burn baby, burn baby, burn."
The flames of devastation heavenward leaped,
in their eagerness to ignite the funeral pyre,
until many ruinous conflagrations later,
how costly the lesson, we came to rue and to learn
that the ash was (much) too much for the urn.
As Vulcan's red rage swept thru farm and thru field,
his fiery sword of destruction did wield,
like mighty, valiant Achilles, enraged,
on Troy's battlefield, ruthlessly avenged
the slaying of Patroclus, his dearest friend;
waded through the unfortunate foe
like a caiman thrashing the marsh water,
till no blood was there left, to flow...only woe,
till his awesome fury finally was expended,
till the anger that fuelled his fire was no more,
and only broken, burnt-out, lifeless, limbless corpses
lay strewn on the forest floor.
To sanctuary some fauna, from the fiery war,
by fortune, or Mother Nature, were led,
or perhaps Papa Bois, as to safety they wildly fled;
but the weak, the infirm, the slow and the flora
they perished, they burned and they bled—
trees wilted and withered...and counted the dead.
A forest wept years for the many that did not escape
the fierce wrath of the engulfing fire-storm,
shaken, survivors stood still, thru tears of sap did
they gaze,
in awe, at the fury the ravaging, ravishing sun had
become;
but its merciless rapier rays, they continued to raze
and still the rains, they refused to come...
And when the deluge, at last, it came down,
alas! The damage it was already done.
I pray never to see such dread days return
as the fire season of eighty-seven.
Copyright ©2001 by G. Newton V. Chance
- G. NEWTON V. CHANCE
- George Newton Vivian Chance (Trinidad and Tobago) -- member of the Poet Society of Trinidad and Tobago, http://poetssocietytt.blogspot.com/ and the World Poets Society, http://world-poets.blogspot.com/ -- born in Tobago on 3rd March 1957. While residing at Rio Claro was inspired to write over a hundred poems at the turn of the Millennium. Hobbies include playing wind instruments, building computers, observing nature, reading and writing poetry. Believes that the power of a song is in its ability to evoke emotions by the marriage of lyric and music but that music without lyric can be just as powerful, that lyric without music can also be just as powerful, that there is music in the lyric and that lyric can be simple yet profound. Also, in this the age of computers, would like to model his lines after simple and efficient code and, analogous to Object Oriented Programming, achieve most of his imagery from nouns and verbs, avoiding the bloat and excess of unnecessary adjectives. This is what he aspires to attain in his poetry.
1 comment:
need to see a photo of the blogger
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