Toward The Summer Isle

This is the time of year when my eldest son's thoughts and desires are firmly fixed toward St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. His wife took the above photo on one of their vacations there a few years ago. Unfortunately, he is currently recuperating from ankle surgery. 

This poem always makes me think of Doug and Shelly and their love for that area.

After the Winter by Claude McKay

Someday, when trees have shed their leaves

     And against the morning's white

The shivering birds beneath the eaves

     Have sheltered for the night,

We'll turn our faces southward, love,

     Toward the summer isle

Where bamboos spire the shafted grove

     And wide-mouthed orchids smile.

And we will seek the quiet hill

     Where towers the cotton tree,

And leaps the laughing crystal rill,

     And works the droning bee.

And we will build a cottage there

     Beside an open glade,

With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near,

     And ferns that never fade.

Claude McKay (1890-1948) was a Jamaican-American writer and poet born Festus Claudius McKay in Sunny Ville, Jamaica. His poem, I Shall Return, is about his dream of returning to Jamaica. One I'm sure my son would also relate to.

If I had a magic wand, I would transport Doug and Shelly to St. John for him to complete his return to mobility in the sun and surf. 💝