poems from New World

Caitríona Reed  

for L. E.

1  The Passage

Your body

is the dream catcher

Generations

dream and wait

in it

They pass

through your heart

to find their beginning

I have discovered

these words there,

and a witness,

and silence

 

 

2  Truth

Am I to be torn from where I am?

Am I to accompany you

to a New World

always just out of reach?

Am I to make up stories?

Am I to bring everything

with me there,

or am I to leave it behind?

 

 

4   Mutiny on the Middle Passage

Roll out the charts upon the captain’s table,

hold down the corners with belovèd souvenirs

 

Lean into me, I will be your ocean

 

We’ve sailed far out beyond familiar parts,

far too far from home, too far

from customary ways and clan

Green wood and clay and uncut stone,

kalimba and drum; a necklace, and a talisman—

place them on this table so we can plot our course

Lean into me, I will be your ocean

 

. . .  and know that . . . 

There are no marks of rock or reef or land, no sign of other masts

The signless papers on the table blank, the signless ocean vast

 

Reach out beyond this surface with your free hands

(too deep to sound or swim, too wide to know)

 

Reach into my radiance, I will be your ocean . . .

 

 

 

8   Song of The Meeting

He lay inside me breathing.

My breath is

his breath is

my breath

Is his breath is

his breath

is my breath is

his breath

is

my breath

is my breath is

his breath

is my breath is

my breath is

his breath  

His breath is

breath is

his breath is breath his is

is

is

breath

I breathe his breath

beneath inside above around

is his breath is his breath

is his breath is my breath

Breathing

is

is

is.

He lies down beside me breathing.

I am right here.

You lie down beside me

I am here

I am breathing

I am

breathing I

am

 

 

10  Calypso

Fancy papers on the wind, streamers of grass

cloud map, less than membrane

gift wrap the storm. No one

knows where or how.

The oilskin poncho­ is flotsam in the dark harbor,

the rope once strong speaks of the past, breaks

between a child’s fingers

            and the sails

            that were once

            filled with . . .

                       EVERYTHING!

Leaning into it, leaning into it

to salvage something from the wind

a continent perhaps,   an entire world.

And the trade winds that bring us, the winds that

breathe us—

Breathe me now!

Oh, breathe me now!

I have not finished being silent with you.

But the green world is

green, green, green and gold.

And your body is gold like the sun.

And I will sing awhile

and sway like a palm in the wind

and remember

                       EVERYTHING!

 

 

© Caitríona Reed May, 2001

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