Poem by Derek Alton Walcott

Map of the New World

       I Archipelagoes

At the end of this sentence, rain will begin.
At the rain's edge, a sail.

Slowly the sail will lose sight of islands;
into a mist will go the belief in harbours
of an entire race.

The ten-years war is finished.
Helen's hair, a grey cloud.
Troy, a white ashpit
by the drizzling sea.

The drizzle tightens like the strings of a harp.
A man with clouded eyes picks up the rain
and plucks the first line of the Odyssey.

1. In the Virgins
2. Bleecker Street, Summer
3. The Fist
4. The Star-Apple Kingdom
5. Love after Love

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