Return of the Prodigal, by John Robert Lee

Return of the Prodigal Son, by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (Netherlands), 1668.

Return of the Prodigal
​
After the reggae hard-beat, the Haitian guitars and the delicate
mazouk,
the unattainable sloe-eyed dancers, sips from forbidden chalices,
and the inevitable descent to the wood-and-zinc
shack—you came to count your losses,
exhume, with some embarrassment, his unread letters,
raise, to your startled heart, his shameless wishes--


then, giving up your feet and hands to love’s caressing fetters,
you arrived again in the familiar yard, to the evening’s last trumpet.

​John. R. Lee

Saint Lucian writer, broadcaster, teacher, Bible preacher John R. Lee has a Collected Poems: 1975-2015 forthcoming from Peepal Tree. Click here to learn more.