Week 2: LONG

Puvis de Chavannes, Mad Woman at the Edge of the Sea, 1857

The Tropics of New York

Claude McKay  (1889-1948)



Bananas ripe and green, and ginger root 

     Cocoa in pods and alligator pears,

And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit,

     Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs,



Sat in the window, bringing memories

     of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills,

And dewy dawns, and mystical skies

     In benediction over nun-like hills.



My eyes grow dim, and I could no more gaze;

    A wave of longing through my body swept,

And, hungry for the old, familiar ways

    I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.
_____


The poem contains the word in several senses... Look into Claude McKay's story.