BE WITH ME

Be with me where reefs,
bone-white coral beaches sing
and wisdom ripens in the sun,
where casuarina needles litter the sea
and where mango forests and cotton trees
drain the water from the land.

Be with me where the mating dance
of the tree climbing lizards,
bluetail lizards and mouse lizards
arch their tails and push their backs up
and thrust okra throat pouches like fandancers,
in a calypso rhythm to the sun.

Be with me in the humid tropical night
when the distant thunder
dressed in ghostly sheets of lightning
covers our arms that are bone-white lilies
under the full moon, as we bathe in the sea
where the barracuda sleeps
and the shark is hungry.

Be with me where  clouds cover the moon
and it becomes a map of Africa.
The moon breaks out through Ethiopia,
Africa is three times larger than America,
we cannot hide the bleached bones
of colonial slaves who toiled in the cotton fields,
and the sugar plantations
of these wayward islands.

Be with me where we danced to steel drums
rasping through the torpid night
with hibiscus behind our ears
and our hips meshed to an ancient rhythm.

Be with me where Arawak Indians
once gathered peach-lipped conch shells
along the eastern shores to
remind the sun of its feathered cloak.

Be with me where the fish of rainbow skins
slide between my legs in translucent opal hues
as the ocean breathes beside me,
as the night falls from the sky
to the ground and shatters into sorrow
and sunset slips from the private conch shells.

Be with me on this raft of a bed,
and may these damp sheets be like love
turning the fan slowly in an empty room.
Be with me,
and may I always be with you.
Always.

5/17/1985
slightly rev. for clarity, added 2/18
John Oliver Simon's California Poetry Heritage workshop
with Mona Lisa Saloy at John Swett School, Oakland, CA