When the light from the sun is at its most undisturbed,
perturbed by neither rain cloud nor wayward airplane,
Water is free at last to capture the light of the sun.
It reflects it back to me,
silent observer of the river bank,
a diamond perfectly placed
on the wave’s gentle crescendos,
glinting, sparkling in the distance,
flirtatiously going in and out of view.
I recognize that light, on the home of my body,
in the shine of silver.
Silver, blessed white metal of antiquity,
soft,
malleable,
vulnerable
to the passing of time.
Nations were built—
and destroyed—
in your name.
Through my ancestors, the New World was made,
traded across oceans for gold and silver manillas,
the tender of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
My elders in their wit, made and remade,
exchanging manilla for bayra,
relinquishing to me, daughter of the Caribbean,
a new story—
one where I am built in the image of
my Mother
my pleasure, mine alone.
Note: Manillas were crescent-shaped metal rings used as currency during the slave trade. The Bayra is a style of West Indian “bangle.”
