Since I am island born home's as precise 

as if a mumbly old carpenter

shoulder straps crossed wrong,

laid it out, refigured

to the last three-eighths of a shingle. 

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Nowhere that plow-cut worms

heal themselves in red loam; 

spruces squat, skirts in sand

or the stones of a river rattle its dark

tunnel under the elms,

is there a spot not measured by hands;

no direction I couldn't walk,

to the wave-lined edge of home.

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Quiet shores, beaches that roar

but walk two thousand paces and the sea

becomes an odd shining

glimpse among the jeweled

zigzag of low hills. Any wonder

your eyelashes are wings

to fly your look both in and out?

In the coves of the land all things are discussed.

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In the ranged jaws of the Gulf,

a red tongue.

Indians say a musical God,

took up his brush and painted it,

named it in His own language,

"The Island."

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