LAMPEDUSA

 

Praise sirocco again

despite all the tiredness it brings

when the sea is an open throat

and perspiration streams

and the waves’ arms grind swarms.

When it comes, this haze like blinding ash,

it settles at once, the slow thick surf

spreading and sinking the heart.

Hear the burying desire of the desert

and the heat’s gaze, the loitering in eyes

of bottomless pomegranate seeds.

Remember the tall skinny dogs

standing up slowly and walking along

and lying back down, whole bodies stretched

on the broken stones of the pavement

of a Sicilian island street, in the heat

of the noon sun and the strip

of an ink shadow of a yellow wall

where chinks and cracks reminded

of simple exhaustion and eternity.

There we bought rolls of rice and anchovies

while sirocco was blowing its huge

sheets from Africa, the multifarious wings

brought to earth, in scratching

blades of light, delivered

by the ever pregnant sea.

 

I wrote this poem about ten years ago with in mind my visit to Lampedusa in the summer 1986. It's a place of hope and tragedy for many people from Africa now. How different in the '80's :the only person with a black skin I saw there was an American soldier from the US base stationed on the island.