A sea of emeralds, sparkling jewels,
Offspring of a vivid sun
In a foreign sky’s uncanny blank,
Free of clouds except for a few frills,
Diaphanous, white and downy,
Like the stolen feathers of angels.
A peerless pool of deep teal teases,
Fluttering with the flurries of mellow breezes
And splashing lazily
On the beaches of coves
Shielded from the elements,
Draped with shade from headlands
Placed there solely for the purpose
Of rendering the weather irrelevant.
Vegetation crowds the shorelines,
Painted by a brush dipped
In the contents of a palate
Offering only roasted shades
Of olive green and toasted beige.
Trees sway and bend around
As if a moderate puff would surely break them,
Their branches emitting a swishing sound,
Pleasing to ears accustomed to the ocean’s blasts,
But not loud enough to muffle the rude squawks
Of strange birds from prehistoric pasts,
Occasionally ceasing their din
And making awkward swoops.
Those trees seemed ugly to the exiles,
As if disfigured by fire,
With scraps of bark hanging
Like skin shed by reptiles,
Or the shredded backs
Of men lashed by the cat,
And bearing leaves
Too curved and too flat
To perform their natural functions,
Despite the of vibrant show
Made by red-tipped new growth.
Above the gritty sand
And random rocks at the waters’ edges
There are shapeless heaths and hedges,
Seemingly wrought by the inattentive hands
Of a distant relative of the mother of nature
Who had sculpted the ordered terrains
Of the old world’s hinterlands.
To the north and west,
Beyond the seaside bluffs,
In solitary stands above rough tufts,
Gushing like refreshed hopes,
There are spouts of leafy glories,
Spilling on the rolling slopes
Of immigrants’ territories.
