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More poems by Derek WalcottDerek Walcott | Print this page.Print | Order a PoetryNotes Analysis of this poem.Analysis | View and Write CommentsComments

Pentecost

Derek Walcott


Better a jungle in the head
than rootless concrete.
Better to stand bewildered
by the fireflies' crooked street;

winter lamps do not show
where the sidewalk is lost,
nor can these tongues of snow
speak for the Holy Ghost;

the self-increasing silence 
of words dropped from a roof
points along iron railings,
direction, in not proof.

But best is this night surf
with slow scriptures of sand,
that sends, not quite a seraph,
but a late cormorant,

whose fading cry propels
through phosphorescent shoal
what, in my childhood gospels,
used to be called the Soul.


Anonymous submission.

Added: 16 Feb 2003 | Last Read: 8 Nov 2009 7:30 AM | Viewed: 3637 times

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URL: http://plagiarist.com/poetry/7851/ | Viewed on 8 November 2009.
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