The Green Flash

by Derek Walcott 


And the sea’s skin heaves, saurian,

and the spikes of the agave bristle
like a tusked beast bowing to charge

tonight the full moon will soar floating
without any moral or simile
the wind will bend the longbows of the arching casuarinas
the lizard will still scuttle
and the sun will sink silently with a stake in its eye
bleeding behind the shrouding sail
of a skeletal schooner.
You can feel the earth cooling,
you can feel its myth cooling
and watch your own heart go out like the red throbbing dot
of a hospital machine, with a green flash
next to Pigeon Island.


Photo Credit: The Green Flash in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End



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