These latitudes bring unaccustomed blessings
like mangoes falling on my tin-roofed shack,
the solitude to hear my own confession,
and penance that renounces all I lack.

I’ve passed a grateful season on this couch
in rooms as stark and naked as a prayer
with plywood walls in need of human touch
and fingers tracing nothing in the air.

But outside in the garden where the rains
entreat a teeming lushness from the earth
lianas, epiphytes, and creeping vines
enact a strangling forest of rebirth.

At rest, I lie untouched above the fray
with fragrant strife and rumors of decay.