Quote:
Originally Posted by R. Nemo Hill
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Canopy
The sun wanes now
and now the blue of the sky
deepens to disrepair
as overhead
color condenses
and crumbles,
light gambles
and loses
and tumbles
sighing
through these trees
whose green gown grays,
fumbles its own shadow
of a garment
and bares one shoulder,
one wooden limb whitened
by the promise
of a moon arriving.
The ground vanishes.
And the sky dissolves
beyond all that heaves—
this ghostly appetite of leaves,
this splash of green insomnia,
this borderless canopy of trees
rattling the pulse
of tireless pollen
in a dark wind.
All heaven seethes
and it will not sleep,
all muscles ever-stirring,
all cells aghast,
all sap at every moment
re-occurring.
(1985—Point Baptiste, Dominica)
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Nemo, I don't know if this'll be any help but a few thoughts that you can take as you will.
I have a sense of religious thought in Jamaica and the surrounding area which is steeped in Rastafarianism, mysticism, and a certain mystique that's removed from European culture. This description could be a caricature because I only know so much, but it's the feel I get when I think about a place like Dominica.
I get some of that in this poem (albeit from a Western perspective), except from the words in red which feel a bit removed from the lush, mystic picture I'm hoping for. There's something distinctly Western/Christian about ghosts and heaven, and maybe European from cells, which I don't know would fly in the lexicon of the region.
As for the line highlighted in blue, one option would be to end the poem there. What follows feels a bit extraneous, maybe not completely unnecessary, but it feels like you're taking another lap just for the fun of it. You could also end it with the next stanza.
With all of that said it's a serviceable poem and can stand as it is, as you know, so I'd consider most of what I said above optional.
Hope that helps.