Seasonal changes in Jamaica are not as drastic and distinct as they are for our feathered and cloaked friends in northern climes. Here, each Season slowly and seamlessly segues into the next, leaving you to wonder, 'when did the mornings get so light?' Or, 'I guess it is time to put away the blankets!'
Yes, Spring is here, but shades of Christmas linger. The blood-red poinsettias of warm December are still with us. Everytime I step onto my verandah I am pleasantly surprised at how long these Christmas blooms have lasted. Here they are in April, still red and lapping up Spring showers, reminding me of Flame Heart by Jamaican poet, Claude McKay, O.D. which I copy here for my friends in the cold north.
Yes, Spring is here, but shades of Christmas linger. The blood-red poinsettias of warm December are still with us. Everytime I step onto my verandah I am pleasantly surprised at how long these Christmas blooms have lasted. Here they are in April, still red and lapping up Spring showers, reminding me of Flame Heart by Jamaican poet, Claude McKay, O.D. which I copy here for my friends in the cold north.
FLAME-HEART
by: Claude McKay (1890-1948)
- O much have I forgotten in ten years,
- So much in ten brief years! I have forgot
- What time the purple apples come to juice,
- And what month brings the shy forget-me-not.
- I have forgot the special, startling seasonOf the pimento's flowering and fruiting;
- What time of year the ground doves brown the fields
- And fill the noonday with their curious fluting.
- I have forgotten much, but still remember
- The poinsettia's red, blood-red in warm December.
- I still recall the honey-fever grass,
- But cannot recollect the high days when
- We rooted them out of the ping-wing path
- To stop the mad bees in the rabbit pen.
- I often try to think in what sweet month
- The languid painted ladies used to dapple
- The yellow by-road mazing from the main,
- Sweet with the golden threads of the rose-apple.
- I have forgotten--strange--but quite remember
- The poinsettia's red, blood-red in warm December.
- What weeks, what months, what time of the mild year
- We cheated school to have our fling at tops?
- What days our wine-thrilled bodies pulsed with joy
- Feasting upon blackberries in the copse?
- Oh some I know! I have embalmed the days
- Even the sacred moments when we played,
- All innocent of passion, uncorrupt,
- At noon and evening in the flame-heart's shade.
- We were so happy, happy, I remember,
- Beneath the poinsettia's red in warm December.
"Flame-Heart" is reprinted from Harlem Shadows. Claude McKay. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922.
Read more at http://www.poetry-archive.com/m/flame-heart.html#7Uuz8OlQRSzyCj2Y.99
