Morning in St. Vincent and the Grenadines

Caribbean landscapes and rhythms loom lush
The anxious flap of an exotic bird’s wings
The sway and swing of a sister’s firm hips that
Stride familiar with steep hills and deep valleys
The splash of the sea on the shore’s volcanic rock
Beats out the three-quarter time.

An unclaimed yellow dog barks in thanksgiving at a discarded meal
The mooing of yonder tied-to-the-side-of-the-road cow,
Allows the rhythms to simmer and syncopate.

The wind tiptoes across the small waves of the sky-blue reflected waters
The subtle creak of coconut trees
The palm trees clapping their huge fanned leaves in what must be praise
Puffs of foliage like green paint-soaked sponges dabbed
onto a freshly blue-washed canvas.
Rich hues of orange, aqua, blue and neon green roofs
atop pastel and white houses scattered amid the hills and mountains
like squadrons of carnival-colored mushrooms and
textured paint splatters left by an artist
abruptly called away to a more urgent task.

Could there be more urgency than these Caribbean landscapes and rhythms command?

Tree-adorned mountains loom like giant watchmen
posted at the gates of Paradise.
The distant hills look like a weary giant lady dressed in parrot green accented with dried-brush beige
She lies on the ground to rest
Face tilted up and away at the sky
Knees bent and slightly parted, she welcomes the trade winds’ caress.
With intrinsic beauty she basks in the sun’s summer kisses.

Cars and trucks beep and accelerations strain to meet the hills’ demands
Like sound samples recorded in metropolitan places and patched onto the artist’s palette of
Caribbean landscapes and rhythms that God
birthed into this morning in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

© 2005, Stanice Anderson, Speaker and Author, www.stanice.com

The Caribbean Sea at St. Vincent and the Grenadines

Sprawled out before my eyes—
far from the world I knew before this place—
The Caribbean Sea
disguised from this distance as a slate blue-gray sleuth
a slow-moving fog hovers inches from the surface.
Fluffy gray-white blankets of clouds pregnant with rain
maneuvers themselves to vantage points that only God knows
A kite’s tail of mountainous islands rise up from the belly of The Caribbean Sea
like angry sleeping dragons
aroused by what must be beauty’s silent thunder
The kind of beauty
that only God could create.
It’s the difference between an airplane and an eagle.
Between 20,000 earth-bound bridges and one heavenly comet
A camera’s flash and a solar eclipse
The Caribbean Sea
Sprawled out before my eyes
Like a heavy laden desert cart after a six-star meal.

© 2005, Stanice Anderson, Soul Shout

© 2005 Patsy Douglas Foundation, www.patsydouglas.org