[Fiction: Poetry]
Blue Water
And this award goes to blue water
It is calm, clear, placid, peace.
It dances on the lids of my eyes as I inhale its air and exhales its beauty.
It relaxes my system as I follow its infinite lines towards the picturesque horizon.
It reminds me of a treasure box overflowing with blue diamonds and blue gold belonging in a romantic place, where blue water’s culture is infatuated by it.
The beautiful shades of skin, of nature’s inhabitants glow from basking in its radiance.
The piercing voice of falsettos and baritones, detect a language rapid to foreigners but musical to residents.
Melodies form from rhythmic beats which naturally move ears, move body parts worth noting in equally provoking and traditional ways.
Hearts jump at the sound of water’s instruments.
Blue water culture reminds me of selective memory to those who truly don’t know it.
Those questioners only choose to remember the good utopia parts: carnival, my mango tree, my oxtail, my accent,
and blocking the real devastating ones: hurricanes, corrupt protectors, corrupt leaders, violence.
Despite all that, blue water impregnates a culture that when passed down, the walls in each cell thicken from generation to generation.
So much Caribbean is the liquid in my body, it overrides the human red blood cell.
And again I’m reminded, That Curry smell never gives the nose a rest as mother throws down in the bright kitchen.
That current roll never gives the sweet tooth a rest as its carefully baked, and That roti never never stops being breakfast.
Celebrating my Guyanese roots and the Caribbean is the very essence of my being.
It is what I love to be proud of.
Thank you Grandma Stella for taking that plane trip like so many others
to create a generation who is slowly but tries not to, forget its origins and untold history. Apologizing is not enough, but gratitude is what I have, and what I will always show.
signed eloquently,
by my forever celebrated Caribbean culture.
Arnelle Williams is a student at Wesleyan University
