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REMEMBERING THE ISLAND A boy rides his brother's shoulders into the algæ-pinked waves, the older boy carrying a harpoon sling— a bamboo barrel and inner-tube rubber— the rising sun smoldering through bars of smoky cloud. Shadows dart through the water like sharks. The boy will remember this and little else: the sun rising and setting, water, sand, brothers and sisters in the kitchen, his father sitting him down to pick stitches from his chin. Later, he will identify an hour spent writing as killing time, dealing with boredom. For inspiration he will stare at fitful candle smoke ribboning into darkness and will feel a duty to contemplate Destiny and the Laws of Nature, and will judge himself foolish, unfit to translate the motion of sun and wave into his own life's rhythms. I do not want to know the solemnities his Fate cries out. I want to learn if there were bleached slatted shutters, gritty sand on the kitchen floor, the aroma of cumin and cilantro in a bubbling pot, the hot sour reek of seaweed and of nets drying in the sun, the glitter of fish scales on the dock, slow air rattling the dead palm leaves, pelican wings creaking, and a palaver of gulls not heard elsewhere. At my age, I do not look for laws in the behavior of birds or tides or sidereal disruptions. Perhaps it is that I am through with travel, but from that red-stained sea I know I could salvage more.
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