Irie Poem by Charles Andres Alberto

That, over there, I looked at the river-
Smiling heely through the birch
And maybe coasted off the wayward march
And though arrived in giddy fashion-
have lingered quite the past,
we've tried a greater language-
surfing wayward on the grass-
little buds and little cups,
little blades of men,
little girls with curly locks
and bloated farming hens.
She sat there, heels a loft
Upon the other side
The river's water licked her heels
and spilled upon her breast
and there she sat,
book aloft, on her chest,
she cried a little too
but took the book back to town
and cried a little more.
Why has there been so little doubt-
(Rather fascinated lenses)
To look through many lives ago
at the breaking down of fences...
Help me go back to the town of which my daddy spoke,
back to the roaring mountains and thunderbirds
and volcanoes filled with smoke.
back to the old igreja, and the other buildings that cried
their faces run down with the war of time-
the tears, dark and gray and splintery, you can say on their faces, white and plain
And the men who spoke two languages, the women who cooked the bread.
Why not die, why not lie, why not sing another song to me.
Let me lie here and wonder why the thunder does not ring unto me,
Let it ring unto me like the final call of God,
and I will be at his feet, scrubbing until he has said 'enough my child, you can sleep, you can sleep tonight'
I would rather talk to my cousins under neath the rocks and the birches, mongst the bees and the chickens
I would like to be at their call when avo says dinner is ready, and there we go into the house, hand in hand.
And I took the clock to death, I took it right there, I really took it right to it's death-
Then Dusk approached me with a smirk,
and there I looked right through the birch
at the river and the hens,
and then He asked me 'Boy you be! Where you go! What you do! Do something, now! You just sit and stand, quiet then talk'
Dusk he said these things to me, he was the pointward way between- so I could not fasten, I could not girdle throughout his grip
And there I fuddled in his hand, melting like a slow, dripping candle death
And there through the smoky clouds,
God took his hand and poked me
'Get on up, get on up' he said to me joking.
'I can't I can't.'
Heaven hangs over.
Mother used to make wine in her garden,
she used to have the dog lick the grape shards off her toes.
Something wrong I think, something wrong in between the chores.
I think there is something lingering quite the matter on the other side of the grass,
and when the Great Entertainer sings, when the Dusk chokes upon his likely grip
When the raccoons and the dogs and the children scour through the trash...
I will have seen the other side of river and all the gifts of it too
The pretty black girl singing, her hair swaying
Her dad smiling.
The little puppies running and licking milk from their mommies.
And the women with the dreadlocks who taught me Jamaican.
Irie.