No Leopards Poem by ENOCH JOHN

I have no leopards to put
under a Juniper tree, but I can
imagine three white doves, maybe,
descending on a tufted cumulus
above an orange horizon
where ships paint distant
triangles with canvassed sails,
Colon, his troubled and
wearied crew coming to
La Trinity, soon to become
our very own enclave-we
the descendants of slave-shipped
men. From across the dark
and the deep recesses
of Africa and the snake-coiled
Congo. We came.