To Sarah Cresse by Wendy Winter Garcia
White coral reefs and palm-edged strand
Warmed by translucent tropic sea
Enshrined in legend - Ophir's land
Lies Serendip - Taprobane.
Deep in her jungles, green and cool
Where lotus buds pink petals fold
And hyacinths, a forest pool
Web, with their deadly stranglehold.
Lost, ruined city, tendril-clad
Around whose stony pillar's seen
Sinuous coiled hamadryad
Quicksilver, darting, argentine.
On a branch, lazily draped
Emerald-eyed - in his stronghold
Invisibly hangs the leopard
With shadows merging, speckled gold.
Stately leisured step now paces
The peacock, with extended fan
For his drab mate, graceful traces,
Measures regal of a pavane.
Wavering in the hear haze glimmer
High in the purpling distance rise,
To vanish, in a blue shimmer
Crystal mountains, one with the skies.
In valleys lit by starlight pale
Mist swirls, a foaming water fall
Clings like a fragile bridal veil
To the high mountains; granite wall.
Copper-skinned, the lithe, tall peasant
Tills terraced fields and singing now,
In minor key, his timeless chant,
Buffalo yoked to wooden plough.
Sultry August, harvest season,
The grain, threshed underfoot, golden
Winnowed in fans closely woven
By slim, swaying village women.
With marigolds entwined in braids
Jasmine garlands, anklets on feet,
Dance dark-eyed lissom Tamil maids
In temples filled with incense sweet.
The river in the north-east dries
Its bed, a mosaic of cracked clay,
Like smoke, the grey-enshrouded skies
Light, opalescent pearls the day.
Rain, on tin roofs loudly drumming
To drip inside the gloomy hall
Down the leaking gutters gushing.
Mould - like verdigris covers all.
From Antarctica the breakers surge
Against Cape Comorin to dash
Frenziedly, on steep beaches rage
Whipped by the monsoon fury's lash.
By moon's cold silver damascened
Light as a windblow feather glides,
With russet sails, on seas satinned,
Catamaran, on swelling tides
At Point de Galle, moss-covered, grave
It's rampart windswept and savage
A Dutch fortress, withstanding brave
Cruel times merciless ravage.