“Panic” (2024)
Albert John Belmont
Oil on Canvas
The heron picks her clean white, mincing, fine, princess-like.Way through the fields of purple. Sugar cane like she’s too good. For this world. On all sides. Steeping in sugar. It’s hot. And the air is ablaze with biting things. Cane nips at my thin. Sun-licked skin. Tacky as molasses. And bitter. The heron struts. Like a runway model. Head bobbing to some mystic song. Deep in the silence. I can’t hear. On all sides. Fenced in by sugar. The evening’s thick as the clinging mud sucking at my boots with smacking sounds and the night’s afloat with dew drops and the smell of green. Teasing rain.
The heron.
Bends to inspect the earth. Like a dirt connoisseur. Judges the shining. Climbing, crawling.
Inching things. Like it knows better than they do. What they do. Or some great secret I don’t have. Any part in. On all sides. Drowning in sugar. The canes grow close beside each other like swaying. Sweet. Metal bars with teeth. The sunlight’s far from the east. Slanting over me. And the heron. Spreads her wings like a miniature jet plane. Long-legged archangel with an awkward gait. Flaps twice and rises above this place—into the sky like a gangly phoenix. Ablaze against the last rays of light. Leaves me behind, as I squint my eyes. Against the bright. Fading embers of glory. Steeping in sugar. Life is sweet.
Leyelle Mesa-Graham: Saludo! I’m a Dominican and African American author from Maryland, USA, but I’ve lived in the Dominican Republic since I was 12 years old. Passionately whimsical, I live to tell stories in every genre/format possible, including (but not limited to) novels, poetry, short stories and even comics, which I often share on my Instagram (@leyellethecreator). I think writing is a way to find beauty in the midst of life’s most painful and ugly moments. This particular poem is inspired by my experience living in the Dominican Republic, feelings of depression and unfulfillment, and especially by my obsession with garzas (white herons.)