Bush Tea by Richard Georges

Richard Georges is a writer, editor and lecturer in the British Virgin Islands. His poetry has appeared in Smartish Pace, sx salon, Barrelhouse, The Caribbean Writer, Wasafiri and elsewhere. In 2016, he won the Marvin E Williams Literary Prize from The Caribbean Writer.

--

The waters train you to remember
what blade of bush can cut
a fever to beads overnight

what broad tongue

can lull your little one
to dream

to swim through the thick night
like darting barracuda.

The waters train you to trust
the steeping leaves
the greenness murkily
flooding the boiling pot

a memory returning
filling the water’s
veined spaces.

When the morning
leaves us to ponder
the silt at the bottom of our cups,
the dregs are a remembrance
that cannot be drained.