And the land had its own Pentecost.
Each man spoke his own language
But each separate language was the same
As they all understood the inflection of misery.
.
The street lamps were minims of light
Within the bars of the electric lines
Playing the slow dirge of the drizzle,
Rising in crescendos of steam
From the brown puddles.
.
Fishermen disappear into the forgiveness
Of the horizon, like sins, like beatified cloud
Scumbling into the eternal night sky
As the sea caught the last
Of the slain, white-faced waves.
.
A vestige of war sits up in the hills
Like an unmoved rook,
Like the tired head of a war veteran.
I cannot wait for history to seek its penance,
I must offer something to the night.
•••
Vladimir Ortega Soyinka Lucien is from St. Lucia, and is completing 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 