Off Duty

Content chameleon of the leeward leaf,

Out of the wind and warping in the sun,

Has curving to your harbor cost your spine?

Too long the color, not enough the vein

Of this green life we garrison, I, you,

Search now for sustenance in altered air.

Rise! Vane your stiffened body toward the Trade

And trust a double language still will feed:

Two-reaching tongue and lightning utterance

Discover, lash to blood the sugared wing;

Be captor of the wind it folds, the cane

It brushes by; to amber in such speech

Our year the dark rums amber-storm and sun,

Leaf still, the sweet prey hurrying in time.