Light breezes flutter bark on the gum tree.
Bananaquits, piled three deep upon
a bird feeder make their snit snit snit,
the tsking sound of a scolding grandmother
shaking her head snitting through narrow blue lips.
Beyond the gum tree: thick green bush, Mary Point,
The Caribbean, north, the Atlantic. Dramatic
Shades of blue and green give way
to gray, finally to white as one sails
on winds of sorrow toward those ever frozen
latitudes where the landscape is as white
as death’s bones. Here, for a moment,
Earth and World seem at peace: no strife
consumes the land. The sea is calm, white
sails beget no thoughts of the grave, or worse.

Soft wind carries but its own song. Words,
the clash of strife, rending the world, scarring
the earth, its whining shells tearing through air,
exploding into fire, stripping flesh from bone,
the cries of killed and killing, desperate
longings for peace, do not intrude upon this
gum tree’s bark, these snitting birds, this
peaceful instant when these converged.

I breathed, watched the sea’s
colors shift beneath shadows of clouds,
only voiceless wind singing to me.
The world went on and I indulged
the sweet illusion of the moment.

My Wife Lies Naked in the Sun

My wife lies naked in the sun.
Her breasts are brown, each leg, each arm.

She laughs. “A mongoose on the rock beside
The fiddlewood was staring down at me.”

A hummingbird flies by, small cyclones from
Its wings rippling the down upon her shoulder.

I smile. Rising from my seat at the jungle’s edge
I touch brown skin with wildness at my heart

Wilson Roberts, a long-time personal friend of the publisher, resides in New England and the Virgin Islands aqua tranquility of St. John's during inclement winters with his wife and occasional visits from his children and grandchildren. A retired professor of Literature and Creative Writing in Appalachia as well as Massachusetts, he also plays guitar, sings, and writes folk music as well as novels and shorts stories and poetry. As a volunteer he counsels toward reunification dysfunctional families whose children have been placed in foster care by the Court system. He also returns to Appalachia, Tennessee and North Carolina mountain country, from time to time to reacquaint with places and people he's known and treasured in the region over decades of change and turmoil.