Discourse on Pure Virtue
Discourse on Pure Virtue
Original Text
Blue (Vancouver: Polestar Book Publishers, 2001): 101.
1The brown girl, golden, sable eyed,
2flourishing yellow hibiscus,
3steps exuberant, august,
4into August --
5her lushly brocaded gold silk sari
6lavishing honey light at her auburn feet,
7sandalled, cedarly,
8with scent of sandalwood haloing her,
9her individualized, warm, light-dark body,
10her every glance a direction of the air,
11her look of mischievous -- even tart -– sweetness....
12O has she...?
13She has
14come in from morning's slight autumnal chill,
15her feet moistened with diamantine dew -–
16how the sea summers in grass
17(that same grass that rears at the sun
18while butterflies mob frangipani...).
19Behold her smile declaring
20warm, sun-dyed, terracotta lips --
21that chance come home -–
22and I answer,
23"You are light uplifting,
24liberating me from murk,
25from an inferno of squalor."
26O! Let there be rum and molasses,
27rice and mackerel, O Muse,
28the Indian Ocean softening and sweetening the Atlantic,
29this august autumn.
31lotus like slow-motion lightning,
32ivory gold fountaining from earth,
33like you, a fresh light, sprung from earth.
Notes
30] A quotation from Andrew Marvell's "To his Coy Mistress." Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2004
Special Copyright
<b>This poem cannot be published anywhere without the written consent of George Elliott Clarke or the Polestar Book permissions department.</b>