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  • Mangroves
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Mangroves

Christian Campbell

Dusk, and the mangroves
of clouds, which sit low
into reverie; Chinese dragons
mating or big woman riding

chariot, clouds thicker than Whitman’s
beard (all angels have afros);
beneath them the hotels, giant casuarinas
in the half-dark, sawed off

and smoking. Now I must return
from the mangroves with proud
egrets, who know so much
more than me. We must

go back now to the shore
of this new night.


Christian Campbell

from Running the Dusk (Leeds: Peepal Tree Press, 2010)

Reproduced by kind permission of the author.

Tags:

Bahamas clouds imagination islands landscape The Caribbean

About this poem

This poem, representing the Bahamas, is part of The Written World – our collaboration with BBC radio to broadcast a poem from every single nation competing in London 2012.

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Christian Campbell

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