Sitting on the high balcony
Of my father’s small house, I see
Silver moon, floating over sea

And isle alike.  And I think of
The young couples so deep in love
Who dream to see that moon above

For years before they do.  And I
Think of each ancient upturned eye
Upon this cliff, watching this sky.

I hear the waves on rocks below
Where no sane man would ever go
If given choice.  And yet I know

That there were those who chose that fate,
Who’d rather die than masters sate
At Anaberg.  I love the rate

At which the fog crowns mountains’ hills
Surrounding earth the hot sun kills
Just as it did when sugar mills

Ran night and day, or Arawak
Still farmed and fished lands they now lack
Claim to.  If I could turn my back

To this serene and walk out to
The windy point where all the true
Adventurous young men will do

What comes most naturally, I’d see
There Magen’s Bay, and history
Of pirate laden trickery,

Or maybe trails my father made
When he was still less than my age
And he upon these same hills stayed,

Where to this day sits seat of Drake,
Now just there for tourists to take
The pictures that for them will make
 
Up memories of choice.  But I
And many who came before my
Time had not that much.  Around lie

Sunken galleons, from times long
Gone, all mostly for causes wrong,
For no amount of hopeful song

Can send those drowned vessels back to
Their ports of origin.  They do
Not rise up from the ocean’s blue

And undo slavery, nor can
They undo all the wars that man
Has burdened himself with.  As an

Orphan of this Carib sea, we
Deal with what we have.  As for me,
This is how I could come to be

The Chinese descendant of black
Irish-named Frenchies.  I think back
Before my father grew his knack

To tell his tales of youthful days,
Of boxing, theft, hardship and haze,
Of killing goats you had to raise

Yourself.  But I can just recall
The smell of Sub-Base, and of all
The gades with retaining wall,

The old red Danish fort, and most
Of all the salt, the silent ghost
That haunted ev’ry grudging host.

I think of all that history
That I was not alive to see,
But realize that within me
Its heirs live on incessantly.