Cayman Remembered

“Cayman Remembered”
The words tumble
Like wet sea-diamonds
Bouncing off sun-burnt skin
Like bobbing heads full of laughter
Echoing sing-song chatter
During play time
In Spotts Beach water
Like white dazzles
Radiating off sugary sand
Framing our blinding visions with a soft glow

"Cayman Remembered"
Of full-moon nights off 7-Mile or Spotts
All of us eatin’ Johnny Cakes
No wait…
That was North Side
On New Year’s
Speaking of New Year’s
The fireworks over Hog Sty
Fly
Into the sky
Of the mind’s eye
Sometimes it was chilly standing there
Waiting at the waterfront rail
To see the New Year
Blaze
But, by explosive end
And the crowd’s dying din
I longed for more dazzle
Could never get my fill

Some nights were stiller than still
The sweet smell of damp almond tree leaves
Damp coconut tree leaves
Neither pungent nor perfumey
Just soft and sweet
Moistened the air wafting through
The glass challosie
I’d purposely curl my 12-year old frame
Up into a tight fetal ball
And listen

Finally, in super silence
A mile in the distance
From my Prospect Park home I could
Hear
I swear
It was loud and clear
Though soft and gentle
Those rolling ocean waves...
Spotts Beach

"Cayman Remembered"
– the long, hot days
Where I’d daze
Forgetting time
Gazing
Into the sublime
Crystalline
Sparkly
Heavenly
Blue-green-turquoise
Never-found-anywhere-else-on-earth
Water
That sparkled
In the back of the old Puritan pressing shop off North Church Street
Liquid blue splattered all about
Hiding the sunken Cali and all her secrets and stories

“Cayman Remembered”
My keyboard clatters
All these decades later
Remembering the only things
That ever really mattered….