Selected Poems

Stella Maris

Stella Maris There was nothing to do on the island. The dogs chased glass lizards into the dense myrtle bush. I don't know how the children slept. Men and women did what they could to extinguish the brightness of the stars. One night my own supply of rum ran out, and I paced the verandah of my little hut-on-stilts. A ship was passing, the air was warm and moist like an animal's tongue. The island had once been home to pirates and runaway slaves, and giant sea turtles that crawled out by moonlight to lay their eggs. I no longer remembered what brought me there. And always the sound of the sea, like an overtone ofeerie applause, the clapping of the palms of the palmettos. I was dreaming, slightly intoxicated, and I found myself standing outside the little Catholic church, Stella Maris, "Star of the Sea." The priest stood before me, a beaten, disheveled man with ashes on his robes and the unmistakable aroma of alcohol like an unholy ghost drawing us closer. "These people," he said, waving his arms around at his imaginary flock, "they think love's easy, something nice and tidy that can be bought, that makes them feel good about themselves. Believe me, it's a horrible thing to love. Love is a terrible thing, terrible!" And I, an unbeliever, believed him. The next day the owner of the liquor store told me that the priest had been a Jew and a lawyer from New York before converting and becoming a priest assigned to this, the dregs of the Pope's Empire. Sharks and wild boar had thinned out the unbelievers. And Father Moser drank through the night, testing his faith with Fyodor Dostoevsky. I never knew whether or not I had dreamed up that blackhearted priest, but I left the island shortly, and only now look back at my darkest hour with nostalgia. 239 ...