Seychelles: Helda Marie
Helda Marie reads Lamentations from Paradise
Lamentations from paradise
Did you hear the sea calling
as we rowed across the reef to the island?
The same name they gave our fore fathers ages ago.
Was that what we heard as fregates hushed?
Laments of the uprooted?
Salty air, beads of sweat hovering in the gust,
droplets of blood amidst raindrops as we neared the coast
and dropped like sacks of meat to the hot sand.
Did we leave home for this?
Plush greenery and orange sea shells buried in the beach?
Echoes of trichon horns?
We certainly are not clandestine voyagers,
for we contemplated the star struck sky by night
and shouted at the passing vessels by day.
They winked and went along.
Did we set off on this journey just to sit and laze in the midday sun?
Surely there must be more to do than admire sunsets?
Making a decent road to some not so distant future,
saving the birds and the turtles, the trees, the forests and us.
Isn't this why we sailed here?
Do you hear the calls?
This is what we call home.
This place of awe...place of wonder.
This paradise.
Duration:
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Featured in...
Africa—Poetry Postcards
Poems from the continent of Africa.
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