The Torrid Zone: Delirium

Weekly Poem (Audio)

Traveling with the Channings. St. Croix, US Virgin Islands 1830

Softly
through the pomegranate groves
he moves the shadow
still in my mind
here now

in the sea mist

More elegant than a woman
he brushed my arm
and I knew what it was
to move with him
Here now
in the white haze

he is a grip on my solar plexus

a morning papaya
a salt-polished stone
on the nape of my neck

fingers
wet as the mangrove
muscular as African bowstring hemp
as cold-hot as yellow fever

the green hard of the palm trees

Softly
the cotton blooms for his black eyes

Here now
I am the wordless snaking through his dark
language
innocent
wizened
reborn in the white haze
of distance

(An Elastic State of Mind. D.L.D.’s Autobiography in Poems. Wigestrand forlag, 2012)

Thank you for taking the time to read/listen. I’ll be back Sunday with another process journal entry.

I hope you have a great week!

Warmly,

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Give some love. It only takes a little ❤️.