Olive Senior is an award-winning writer and poet from Jamaica. I love her collection, Gardening in the Tropics. I chose this poem because of this line: ‘Already I know, the moment you land I become islanded’.
A Caribbean poet for today’s Another 21Days/21 Poems. I know, the series still lives!
Discovery
Always
like the futile march of crab-armies
from mangrove fortress to the beachAlways
like the palm-fringe waiting
to be breachedAlready I know, the moment you land I
become islandedIn the shadows of the rain forest
I wait in submissionAmidst the trembling of the leaves
I practise hesitant discourseAlways
my impenetrable heart.– by Olive Senior
Source: Poetry International
Here is ‘Brief Lives’ from Gardening in the Tropics.
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ow, this is beautiful
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Nice poem, Kinna! Your favourite line from the poem is very beautiful.
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She’s a wonderful poet.
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