Morning

While the kids are in language school in the morning (and when I'm not trying to get clothes washed and on the line before the afternoon rains), I've been making my way around Antigua's many cafes to write and study. Sometimes I sit in Parque Central for a while before I decide where to go. Here are a few pictures and a poem I wrote in the park, just observing what was going on around me.

~ Parque Central

Clouds of dust lift into the morning light,

swept in great arcs by leaf brooms

longer than the men who wield them

swoosh . . .

swish . . .

swoosh . . .

An armed officer in a beret and flak jacket

stands near the fountain

checking his phone.

A group of Americans in shorts and tank tops,

post-workout coffees in hand,

passes by just beyond my crossed legs,

maybe not yet aware the local uniform

is business casual.

(How do these women in their black ballet flats

walk miles over the cobblestones

that brutally jolt my joints?)

Gradually traffic picks up,

the rumble of delivery trucks,

the light putter of motorbikes.

Benches begin to fill, strangers obliged to share.

A tiny boy, lips sealed around a lollipop,

waves to me, his mother saying Hola for him

as they settle onto the bench next to me.

A child who should be in school

circles round the benches

with a tray of candy and nuts

strapped to her like a cigarette girl

in a 1920s jazz club.

The tiny boy crosses back with his lollipop stick,

climbs the curb, reaches with his free hand

to the rim of the trash, nearly hanging from it

as he dunks his stick over the edge,

peering between the slats to be sure of success.

I clap for him, and he toddle-runs, arms wide,

lurching just in time into his mother’s lap.

She is proud of him.

He crosses again, half-eaten banana in one hand,

peel in the other.

With no free hand, he tips from the curb,

wrist catching the rim of the trash,

hand tilting the peel over and in.

This time when I clap for him,

he claps for himself, too--

tiny palm patting against banana.

I laugh, his mother laughs,

the grandmother on another bench laughs.

We are proud of him.

He feels good.

He toddles away, a slimy chunk of banana in each hand,

checking over his shoulder

to see when his mother will chase.

When he reaches the road

she closes the gap, sweeps him up

all dimples and giggles and banana fists.

Above us the birds. Always the birds.