Motion, 1953

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And they came into the New World.

It was 1953. The name of the tune was Motion.

The reeds were hard and soft at the same time.

At sunset beyond the bows of the beached ships the streamertails were flashing.

They resembled blue and green trick semaphores, light signals rising and flaring against a seaward deepblack glory.

Rita Hayworth and Stan Getz were dancing in a West Coast airplane shack made of thin porous wood, everything looked laminated, aerodynamic, in the painted hangar.

Takeoff into conflicted breezes, moving through a baffle of bamboo, gangway rolling slightly.

The ghost of a change happens to you if you let it.

Swaying bodies come apart, tropic clouds race a paper moon, a hot wind, paper palms falling down.

Some fragile coral green undersea thing is haunted by your breathing, the gardenia of your mouth, the jasmine of your skin, the fragrance of Negril, spices cast upon the night to fathom the remembered impulse of your inner life.

Red-billed Streamertail (Trochilus polytmus): photo by Dominic Sherony, 2007
Football at sunset, Negril: photo by Listgod, 2006