Frenchmen In The Sea.

A mild isle/ bananas hang in blue
Bags & lucent geckos scatter, mercury green on
Dawnbrushed leaves. Odd birds sing
Thin, unfamiliar sun songs. A silent squad of
Thongshod Frenchmen move in the quay,
Dabs of haunchless padding centaurs bobbing
Between the old stone jetty arms,
Staking their claim on cloud colonies
Streaming on the watershine, through
Pennant points of sargassum.

Their fathers so dibbled in such weeds,
With greaved legs, troughing toward
The impossibly green quilts of hill and
Oyster sands, toward the
Oakum humble faces on the shore,
& hazel arms flexed open wide as palmettoes.
Ah: to lead them up, out from verdant ignorance,
Twisting their wisdom in time to learn
Odd, ardent verbs with unusable moods;
To hew this watershade into utility:
To bezel this jewel in ormolu moons.