The Name for the God Who Speaks

The poems in The Name for the God Who Speaks reference Caribbean deities, the power of weather and landscape and ancient myths to illuminate an annus horribilis of cancer and loss. In the last poems, youth and music redeem the experience.

This is the Name for the God who Speaks

Father, you would know these primal prayers,
light flashing in the west behind live oaks,
a sky-slashed language dead after Conquest.
From that living world, we share only lightning,
an old god speaking light out of darkness,
a chant of rain as alphabet where water flowing
is a word.