Dancing the Beans

Monday, July 11, 2011

In Trinidad limber women
danced a path of cocoa beans,

do do petit cacao o

hot sun, red-dust. Bare feet
shook loose debris, turned

the beans with a graceful flick
of a juice-stained ankle. Polished

roulay roulay do do

harvests to a sheen, polyrhythms of old
Africa pressed deep. A Golden Age

for oligarchs. Swaying women
calypsoed heaps of beans

duba do cacao o

to makeshift drums of bamboo sticks,
bottles, and spoons, before machines.

 

Friday, July 1, 2011