ST. CHRISTOPHER Poem by John Leefmans

Vox Dei compels me to climb Brimstone Hill.
They point across the sea, I peer between guns,
in vain, to find the promised island in the sun:
desert-dust cannot be shaken off, even now
hampering my sight after roaming for 40 years.

You are not here. I bow my head, ‑
peruse the guestbook: you never were.
(Maybe you were there, across,
in 7 veils of dust, shrouded
from the eyes of whoever stood here,
the mournful mien or young Nelson perhaps?)

One more attempt, and Sancho Panza deceived, descends
(Mozes did stay, and with open eyes went to dust,
an old cottontree after years of drought.)

I travel from one Calypso to an other,
and once returned, after a bath, I look
and find my children grown up suddenly.
The tall bow I unbend, bury compass and bodies,
and only then can I look them in the eye,
for the first time.