[Mostly I Remember the Dark]

Mostly I Remember the Dark Because the darkness was sublime.
And the night is so wonderful and increasingly rare.
With the great improvers came roads and wire strung poles.
The waterfront trees blocked the new "electric" so
The trees must go and the trees disappeared.
Or perhaps there never were any trees.
Worthless trees; the Hippomane the manzanilla,
Dripping its ancient poison in defense of its seaside roots.
Clinging between Carib wind gods and man-made roads.
The sea took away the beach and then the road as well, but
Perhaps there never were any trees.
Perhaps there never were any birds on Bird Key either.
I remember the birds; white clouds settling into bower of greenmangrove.
Canute Calliste saw a mermaid here. She hasn't been seen recently,but
He too remembers the trees and the birds and the reef ,or
Perhaps there were never any birds on Bird Key.
Shadows perhaps, "visions", some dust
Flickering in an old man's eyes.
It might be rum or myopia,
Perhaps delusions?
But I can't get those birds out of my head.
Where do they nest?
Where is their crowded congress tonight?
I remember the darkness.
And now we have light.
We have too much light.
We have forsaken the stars and planets and the moon!
And we wonder if progress might bring back the trees and birds andmermaids.
And we wonder alone.
And now the mangroves
Are worth more dead than alive
And so the trees and the birds and the reefs
And so the Mermaids, but
Mostly, I remember the Dark.

- Captain John Smith
S/V Mermaid

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