April is poetry month! As a poet, each year I look forward to this month-long celebration in honor of poets and their poetry. Isn't it great that we get one whole month to highlight this beautiful art form?
So, in honor of poetry month, I am sharing my poem entitled Postcard From Havana, which is my reflection on a special time I shared there. I hope you enjoy it!
At Havana airport
Our unending gaze
kept at bay the many questions
crying out for answers
that perhaps our hearts
did not want to know.
because you refused to be bound
by time and order.
Our together trip
fragmented,
so I sojourned Havana solo.
and what you said was
your most expensive phone call ever.
to haunting flashes;
nostalgia a permanent keepsake
of a love that could have been.
Copyright Yasmin Morais 2013
So, in honor of poetry month, I am sharing my poem entitled Postcard From Havana, which is my reflection on a special time I shared there. I hope you enjoy it!
Postcard from Havana
At Havana airport
separated by a curtain of glass,
we air-touched.Our unending gaze
kept at bay the many questions
crying out for answers
that perhaps our hearts
did not want to know.
Ridiculous, me leaving,
you arriving,because you refused to be bound
by time and order.
Our together trip
fragmented,
so I sojourned Havana solo.
I smiled a week later
at the postcard you sentand what you said was
your most expensive phone call ever.
Memories are the only roads,
stories, the only bridgesto haunting flashes;
nostalgia a permanent keepsake
of a love that could have been.
Copyright Yasmin Morais 2013
6 comments:
Excellent work, Yasmin.
Enjoyed this poem, Jasmin.Wonderful postcard indeed.
May I share my poem too:
Not Wanting To Be A Refugee
by Leonard Dabydeen (1984):
(First published in the Indo Caribbean World)
How I wish to sing you a song
to let you know my love for you
is greater than all the world;
How I wish to hold you tight
and embrace your coastland:
your rich mud-banks,
golden rice fields swaying in the wind,
sweet sugar-cane burning in the fields,
punts slowly drifting in the canals,
bauxite mining and gold diggers panning;
How I long to watch buck-crabs marching
and jumping shrimps in dragging seines
where the Atlantic greets the sandy shores;
How I wish to see little boys
riding donkeys on red clay-brick streets,
some playing marble games in their back-yards,
mothers crouched on their knees
spreading cow-dung beneath stilted houses;
How I wish to drink sweet coconut water
sitting by the black-sage bush
or under a canopy of towering coconut trees
swaying like giants reaching for the blue skies;
How I wish to call my country
my home
not wanting to be a refugee:
fleeing from the wrath
of demon-like men who want all
not even listening
if you’re begging for some.
Thanks !
Leonard Dabydeen
Jennifer,
Thanks. Glad you like the poem. So glad you checked out Poets of the Caribbean today.
Leonard,
Happy poetry month to you! So good to hear from you, and thanks for sharing Not Wanting To Be a Refugee. I love it, and the Caribbean imagery made me nostalgic, especially the "sweet coconut water"
Hi, Yasmin. What a wonderful poem! So rich in reverie and imagery. You, my friend, are a romantic and so am I. Thank you for sharing your poem with me. Khanh
Khanh,
So good to hear from you. Thanks for checking out my blog, and for your comment. Glad you like the poem. It is a reflection of my very special time in Havana, Cuba. You are right: I am an incurable romantic, although sometimes I think that most of my poems tend to focus on political and social issues.
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