The Volcano, Vol. 1

By: Herenicus Posted on: December 31, 2013

Where life affords leisure, seize as thou may,

Ecclesiast, soldier, or romantic rake,

Linger awhile and with prying eyes slake,

Curious natures may feast en buffet,

En garde! Dear reader, excuse my foul play,

Men, half-asleep, deaf and blind may awake,

Early, for some, but for others too late,

For thee, bear witness, my past disarray,

Recollecting, prospecting for treasure,

Insight, perspective through telescope lens,

Embrace this score, sweet music by measure,

Nascent, as love between grain and its thresher,

Dabblers in Art hear a song on the winds,

Sirens recalled by poetic gesture.

Aureus arise, give protest to night,

Pink Her horizons, clandestine Her dawn,

Obliquely modest as dappling fawn,

Limpidly bathed in a coral delight,

Obscure, forbidding, and wreathed beyond sight,

Greenery grows to a halt at the feet,

Island volcano, this unholy seat,

Enoch to primitive mortals affright,

Sun-drenched humidity, soaked to the bone,

Frond and fern frolic in languid largess,

Orchids in bloom, Nature's beauty enthroned,

Roses, too wild for the hands freely grown,

Ten-thousand treasures, the native noblesse,

Handmaids and paupers possess as their own.

Emptied each morning, thatch huts by the score,

Winking by starlight, in silence they pass,

Oarsmen or shore men, the hunters en masse,

Rankled and scuttling, crabby and sore,

Kin leave the shade of this mountain adored,

Traversing in dugout canoes waters vast,

Netting for fishing and gamblers soon cast,

Padding as tigers, by jungles explored,

Resolute eyes light at last upon game,

Over the cheek, darkly painted, she draws,

Culling the herd of a doe by her aim,

Expelled distraction, her wildness tame,

Slowly exhaling, a murderous pause,

Shooting, released like a moth unto flame.