Memories of a idyllic island on the Green Coast of Brazil.

X

….Things that prefer to be hidden from us, without the effrontery

Of the small seven-coloured birds that flit through the quiet,

Perch for a sec on a branch of the Bougainvillea, then dart

Into the house. Things better left unsaid. Better not disturb

Their inertia. The boy inhabits the hammock immersed

In his App. Why is that fan of stripes called a dentist fish?

Picasso said something like “I find. I do not seek.”

x

Those who grow up among palms inherit an aesthetic

Radically different to that of persons accustomed to the blurry

Vagaries that epitomise European foliage. Rather it’s

An aesthetic in silhouette; crisper, more graphic, suited

To the precise woodcut. Each climate asserts its own particular ethic.

Our autumn mists of melancholy, clumping of oaks, ivy-ridden

Walls inspire the generalisations of our romantic tendency.

x

Here though, against the honed precision of an outline’s

Bladed fans, only the sea comes shambling in, yawning, stretching,

Breathing out, re-inhaling. But someone has drawn back the curtains

Of bougainvillea so that the garden below the veranda becomes

A theatre. Two gentleman, a fallen tree, and the single prop

A chain-saw. One man positions the bough, and intermittently

Now the saw does its biting, interrupting the surrounding sea.

x

All that is over though. The logs stashed away to the bank

Underneath the suggestion of a crag, among some variegated leaves,

While the tree removed reveals a view of one magnificent stand

Of bamboo, its stout poles ending in spray after spray

Of calligraphy written by delicate leaves. And now the cicadas

Compete with the sea from within the bamboo, sounding

As dry as the sea is wet, abuzz with the gossip that informs

x

The overgrown bank with its several giant leaves, pots with exotics,

Favoured perches for these tiny, seven-coloured birds

That nip through the house, perch on plates for seeds,

While fireflies kindle instants of light later, in the dark.

Gone before seen, and there’s no way of knowing what

You’ll bequeath, what will persist, what will vanish

Down time’s throat, lives being less than a firefly’s flash.

x

Seven colours to each of them. From the Bougainvillea with

Impunity they flit, everywhere; emerald, another green as well.

Black and yellow, white, all on one little bird, and more tints

Than that, the male by a trifle more decorated than his spouse. 

Tiny feasts of colour, reminding me that birds have other ways

Of appealing to us, from the long elegance on high of those Magnificent

Frigate Birds to the beady intelligence of the crow family.

x

Mozart enjoyed employing a starling as a prompter

And as a “creative aid” to composition. One day

The starling repeated the 17 opening notes of the Piano

Concerto No. 17 in G major, adding its own variations;

In particular by inserting a coda on the last bar

Of the first complete measure and singing G♯

In the following measure, instead of a natural G.

x

It was the starling’s version that became the definitive

Version of Mozart’s concerto. In June 1787,

The starling passed away. For him, Mozart organized

A sumptuous funeral, and in the garden of his home,

A worthy burial; even dedicated a passionate elegy

To his feathered co-composer. Don’t allow a cat onto this isle.

Or that’ll be the end of all the birds, the blue ones as well.

x

There’s a plague of Brazil’s most dangerous snake here

Due to a South African Ridgeback’s hunting down of the Coypu.

You just better look where you’re going for once

And check where you sit before settling to do a sketch.

Be mindful of the sun, as one day on a Rio beach did you in

Badly on the back, because when it comes to lotion, you are slack

To use it at first, and thus you almost always end up toast.

x

Below the tossed palms that slide precise blades against

Blades from another palm, washing through the alleys

And lapping at the hollows of the ear, flexing then relaxing

Its attacks, the surge laps at the rocks by the shore, swollen

Only to subside. It wells up and sinks back again, and I could

Watch it forever, lashing itself into a froth, then

Flushing all the coast within earshot of the open house.

x

It sinks then wells up again, foaming, awash, pouring

Its current into each hollow before retreating, leaving a

Fleur-de-Lys residue that sinks back from all crevices.

Heard through open rooms in the night as the breeze tosses

The bamboo sprays above our heads, throughout the day,

Then each and every night, not to be turned off;

Foam dissolving into froth. Reassuring that it never ceases,

x

Dark now where a stain shows its retreat,

The mobile sound of this eternal liquid!

Maybe it pauses sometimes, but it never stops;

A power which may not be argued with for long.

Now the sea reminds me of an elephant and how one elephant

I met casually wielded the inexorable power of its trunk

To move what it willed which was me where it wished.

x

From The Runiad – Book 23.