Pentecost

Derek Walcott

Better a jungle in the head

than rootless concrete.

Better to stand bewildered


by the fireflies’ crooked street;



winter lamps do not show

where the sidewalk is lost,

nor can these tongues of snow

speak for the Holy Ghost;



the self-increasing silence

of words dropped from a roof


points along iron railings,


direction, if not proof.



But best is this night beach


with wild scriptures of sand,

that sends not quite a seraph,

but a late cormorant,



whose fading cry propels


through phosphorescent shoal


like what, in childhood gospels,


used to be called the Soul.

Copyright ©  Derek Walcott