Walcott, "Dry Season"

In the country of the ochre afternoon
it is always still and hot, the dry leaves stirring
infrequently with the rattling pods
of what they call “women’s tongues,” in
the afternoon country the far hills are very quiet
and heat-hazed, but mostly in the middle
of the country of the afternoon I see the brown heat
of the skin of my first love, so still, so perfect,
so unaltered, and I see how she walked
with her sunburnt hands against the still sea almonds,
to a remembered cove, where she stood on the small dock—
that was when I thought we were immortal
and that love would be folded doves and folded oars
and water lapping against eroding stone
in the ochre country of the afternoon.


Derek Walcott

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