Never to leave that valley his fathers called
their home. —W.B. Yeats
These roots are hardened now in the earth,
And they spread like a child’s fingers,
Holding desperately the dirt that will soon
Escape their grasp.
The trees have always been our brothers.
The silk cotton tree that was forced to lynch us,
In those gardens that our mothers stooped to nurse
That grew with us, were our brothers.
But before they fell to the earth,
I grieved when they cried in autumn
As they made room for fresh, spring sorrows,
But I wept only for the loss of my old metaphors.
I miss those real tears that only children cry,
When crying was the abscission of the heart.
•••
Vladimir Ortega Soyinka Lucien is from St. Lucia, and is in his freshman year of a BA in Literature and Theatre at the U.W.I. St. Augustine Campus in Trinidad. He is working on a collection of poetry entitled Lacrimae Rerum, and a novel he is calling Fragments.
tongues of the ocean 
New poems on tongues of the ocean « Scavella’s Blogsphere
[…] the ocean In Literature, Other Stuff, publications on Monday, February 16, 2009 at 11:32 pm “For the Trees” by Vladimir Lucien, from St Lucia: The trees have always been our brothers. The silk cotton tree that was forced to […]