And the waves arrived
Swimming in like hump-backed divers
With their finds from far-away seas.
Their lustre gave the illusion of pearls
As shorewards they shoved up mighty canoes
And looked like the carcass of drifting whales.
And our sight misled us
When the sun's glint on the spear's blade
Passed for lightning
And the gun-fir of conquest
The thunderbolt that razed the forest.
So did our days change their garb
From hides of leopard skin
To prints of false lions
That fall in tatters
Like the wings of whipped butterflies.