Subtropical Colony

Besieged farm so laid a’bare
A lonely waste with dusty air.
Carpet land with creeping brown.
Enfeebled rivers arid drown.
Descend from dying farms toward,
Beset and yawning desert ford.
So shadows play with alien form.
Exotic blooms become the norm.

Arrive on fertile grassy plain.
Green mountains dump a pail of rain.
Bring heaven’s vale upon the fields.
Rise alpine clouds like azure’s shields.
So come forth draping  liquid wall.
Come witness  endless ceiling fall,
And shatter sky with welkin bolts.
There great and hoarded moisture molts.
Then celebrate with colored light.
Till sanguine moon do rule the night.

Day breaks in humid breathing air.
Our city bare sits visage fair.
Nigh tropic bounty bursting forth.
O’re ample groves and thrumming swarth.
Unseen the neighbors’ song impart.
Their timbal chorus slows the heart.
Where stoic men do build and sire.
The colony erupt from mire.
From grand ambition commerce spread.
Advance the law and bring the bread.
Produce the virtues long forgot.
Where industry and wares are wrought.

Of stone and brick and grandeur old.
Exhausted country cede the bold.
A classic pageant rich estate.
Convene to furnish precious freight.
To dine and laugh and drink in deep.
Find guilt to ply their conscience reap.
Where noble obligations keep.
So over tranquil burgs asleep.
That raise the dickens growing fast.
And fill the plain so verdant vast.
The past arise from rampart’s grace.
For future lives, archaic chase.
The fingers long of chroma hand.
Soon come to sleepy hinterland.

As coxcomb plumage lavish drift.
Suggest an ivy pattern gift.
When folly struck forgotten blow.
And wisdom cede to undertow.
Maintain the orbit ivory pull.
Keep taut the civic cord in full.
So easy to release the slack.
Let spin the ‘ssorted legion wrack.
For ease in harvest wilt the will.
Forget the lessons nature still.

The city finds machine’s embrace.
So tear and pull the sense of place.
Oration bring the mortal strokes.
And bear the axe at hoary oaks.
So slow to grow and fast to fall.
Plantations so import their thrall.
The ships from foreign ports set sail.
Foreshadow Froude’s foreboding tale.
For how long leave the bow unstrung?
With bodies from the billboards hung.
As children vanish in the dark.
The epoch starts to make its mark.

Pass weary arms and labors grand.
So tempted suffer time’s remand.
So loom the shadow long and great.
How soon forget us Haiti’s fate.

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