Articles - Visual Arts

Caribbean Fresco in New England by Jose B. Gonzalez

No pure Caribbean tree grows
In my New England backyard
Full of hickories with Puritan Bark.

Capes grow here, sowing
Colonials and Frost Fences
In Yankee farms never visited
By palms of the tropics,
But subdivided by apples
And Thanksgiving veggies.

Museums of whales,
Watered by fountains
Of Gloucester watches,
Meet museums of witches,
Filled with trials
Of salem wizards,
But no museums or wintry greenhouses
Hold Caribbean frescoes.

Still lives of mangoes and guavas,
Uneaten,
Unrecognized,
Unsold,
Sit at farmers' markets,

Grown by hungry and nostalgic curators.