Alright, someone from Europe might not call it a city.
But if a city mean a place
where ground so hard, people stop bury navel string
and no one looking at a tree can say:
“Is my grandfather plant that”; a place
where, no matter how much street lamp light,
all you look out for, all you see, are shadows; a place
where, days and days and days, you only
seeing people you eh really know;
and you already starting to accept, believe
that’s how it is, that’s how life go—
well, if a city is a place just so,
then this plenty-shack-with-couple-condo/jalopy-SUV/spendfast-payslow/
so-it-come-so-it-go/quick-dead/continual-state-of-inbetween-uncertainty
is, in some sort of way, i guess, perhaps
a city.
•••
Kendel Hippolyte, a playwright, actor, director and cultural activist, received a James Michener Fellowship to study poetry, an OAS scholarship to study theatre, twice won the Literature prize in St. Lucia’s Minvielle & Chastanet Fine Arts Awards, and was given the St. Lucia Medal of Merit (Gold) in 2000.
tongues of the ocean 