My eighth book Tide Tables will be released shortly. Here is a poem from it. Every Civilization was also recently published in The Caribbean Writer. The photo was taken at Coral Beach Club by a Kodak Instamatic camera. I always shoot a roll of images with one when I go to Bermuda. The prints are less sharp, have a filmy texture, and I have to wait a few weeks to see what I actually shot.
Every Civilization
Needs its pillars,
the rubber tree
is such in Coral Beach Club’s domain.
Below, the roots pile like
dead bones from an excavation,
brown leaves archival paper
to pick up artifacts. I was
civilized here. The silver urn
for tea placed ritualistically on
the linen tablecloth as if
an altar. Liquid the colour
of elastic downpours into
an elephant’s trunk in
an empire where all
human memory was stretched.
