The Psalm of Contentment
For Madeline "Aunt Girlie" Barrow

Lift me like a dove of peace
To commune with the heavens
To celebrate this song of silence
That I may welcome the music of this garden
The chatter of monkeys swinging
In and out of love vines
Against the boisterousness of highflying parrots.
The utterances of cows churning their last grass
Of spiders crocheting their fences
In this home, sweet home.

Carry me on the wings of the morning
So that I may feel the early morning breeze
against my cheek.
Let me glimpse the first light of dawn
And the last light before night falls.
Let me rest and rise again
To the greetings of Bajan roosters
And the rapid conversation of guinea birds
For tomorrow is but a breathe away
And night an evening gone.
Always home, sweet home.

©Louisa Nurse
Thursday, August 16, 2001
Barbados was expecting Tropical Storm Chantel when I wrote this poem.