St. Lucia Landing (excerpt 5)
72.
BBC follows me south
and the network
plugs Billy Bragg
and Wilco doing
Woody Guthrie
archive songs —
Heard them first
two summers ago
on the Beeb radio
in Westminster, London,
Stakis St. Ermin
hotel suite across from
New Scotland Yard —
now I surf to a
documentary on
the record they made
73.
First cruise ship today
slips past the point:
blue-bordered sheet
of white notepaper
being tucked into a
forest-green envelope
74.
No doubt why
the lawn man’s
eyes sparkle as he
hurries to load the
day’s tools aboard
his pick-up for a
bouncy ride over
the hill, where his
wife watches for him
75.
Big blown plume
of cumulus like massive
exhaust from the back
of a formula race car
blasting off the line
at Azure Straight-away
76.
Mourning dove
goes woo . . . woo . . .
in a bamboo flute like
Lowell mourning doves,
old Highland Street,
not high as the highland here —
our Highland in the South End,
the Flats (for tenement tops),
near Meeting House Hill —
this is Hibiscus Lane
77.
I track their steps
from hillside balcony,
the best 2/3rds of
my family pie chart,
the wife, the son,
walking beach-ward,
small as bronze ants
on this lounge chair
mid morning heat
—Paul Marion (c) 2018