Nigel Assam
Further from Empire than my predecessors,
this language I use is mine too.
The same sea they saw
I have seen, and felt too,
in the same way, its familiar salt stinging
in the same wind crossing from the horizon
they saw, its line traced by my eyes
the way theirs followed it too. A wave
is still called a wave and still sounds like a wave
and the Caribbean by any other name
is not the Caribbean. The chaconia
is still called chaconia, and blossoms
and sprays its vermilion each August
in time for Independence Day
and its parade curling through streets.
The sky has not changed.
History is bliss.
A Boston University Creative Writing Graduate, I was born and raised in Trinidad until the age of fourteen, when I emigrated with my parents and sisters to the United States. I have lived in the USA for 30 years and currently reside in Baltimore, MD where I work as a realtor.