Tropical Sky


jp melville, poems, ottawa, canada, benin, africa, elora


Tropical Sky
jp melville


The tropical sky above me, hazy, washed blue from horizon to horizon.
The sun, detonating in silent perpetuity, the heat bearing down heavily.
My life, the one I once believed I had, has slowed, stopped, evaporated in the humidity.
These past few days I have slept, three, four hours in the afternoon,
early to bed at night, up with the dawn.
No dreams.
And during the days my thoughts wither.
I watch an insect land in the sunlight, on a piece of paper, and it rubs its tiny hands together, then flies away.
The ants have come, scurrying where my cold drink had been, sucking up the sweat.
I hear music, voices, motorcycles, grinding mills,
a distant, present cacaphony surrounding me though far, far removed from me.
Occasionally, the wind dancing in the banana fronds and coconut palms reaches across my porch and cools my skin,
the heat from the sun so intense that I notice every swirling breath of wind where it touches me.
I find, oddly, that I cannot think beyond what I see, feel, hear, even the wet taste in my mouth,
slightly bitter from the tonic water I drank.
Like in that person I once thought I was, I seem to wish to find meaning in the pageantry around me.
But I find no meaning.
My thoughts stop at sensation.
As the person I once thought I was, appears to have stopped at being.

Or, maybe, maybe I am just beginning to be.

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