Street

An Island Exile in King Street

rE city marts are flaunting summer’s fruit, With apples red and oranges pale gold, Near alien pawpaws, bruised and odour less, Contemptuous of their luxury price, un sold.

Whilst I in muted sympathy may turn Remembering perfumed gardens by the sea, Whence came Tabunka with a graceful sway And balanced basket, from the moolie tree.

Bananas squatting steeply on a slope And brinjhals* sitting stiffly in a row.

This regimented ugliness must yearn For spacious foothills where warm breezes blow; Where nutmeg pigeons and wild parro keets, From leafy look-out send exultant clue.

To eager spearmen on the village ridge Who seek the season’s birdnote, over due.

For shop-tired fruits I have no appetite— I crave the tropic citrus green, not gold.

I like my early pawpaw dew-bedecked Sprayed with sipora.t perfumed and dawn-cold.

Those luscious fruits must need their atmosphere, With music of the ever-murmuring sea; Or on the Islands ranges where the clouds Roll back in grandeur of new day-to-be.

So, sighing, I shall vision softer sheens Of Buka baskets filled with lime-cool greens.

—Alice Allen Innes.

* Brinjhals: Egg Plant. t Sipora; “Moli” or green limes.