Whatever happens next
or never happens ever
I’ll know with clarity if not with certainty
I had that moment in Montego Bay
when beauty beckoned me then
held me tightly
When I looked longingly at an empty beach
looking as far as the eye could see
and there looking back at me wooing me
a warm Carib sea
hues of blue cradling me like a cobalt quilt with white foam lace
laid out on the ocean’s bed for me to lie down, to lay
my burdens down.
Has this beach always been
shimmering since that first morning after the beginning?
Have the waves always returned
bursting with new songs to serenade the waving palms, those
green shore statues grounded in pearl-white sand
standing stately, guarding shade?
And does He see this other Eden every dawn
His own beach bare in blue morning light
silver silhouette in moonlight?
Soon I will not see this borrowed beach, this blue-green
beauty left behind the border.
But even if I return,
moments being what they mean,
I will not see this for the first time ever.
Has He waited for me to be here,
waiting from my birth, timing
my arriving
scheduling time and space for this signature sea-born
moment, waiting with sun, wind and water symphony?
Applause! Applause!
Be it resolved then when next I exhale
I’m not the same
not ever after
sun and sea blueprinted beauty in my DNA
in a forever moment in Montego Bay.