Oronoco Funeral Cortege Poem by Bernard Henrie

Black cars determined in the rain’s steady drip
to carry father to the grave. My father hated
cold water, downpours and afternoons without
sunlight preferring green banana stalks, copra
boats and men with bandoliers; sailing in his
mind to the Amazon’s head waters to become
lost, Panama ship locks and tropical diseases,
moons gold as the mouth of a Calcutta dentist;
Digging out sacred relics guarded by Zambezi
mud huts; the dark, illegal backgammon dens
of Hyderabad and Bangalore; border crossings
in fog, stars burning in Fox constellation filled
he said with blooms of purple rhododendron;
he married rich; satin tux, Claridge for a truffle
supper, green Pernod at the tufted Fumoir bar;
Palm Beach summer suit and red banded hat;
silver plated trophy rifle; biographies of great
men, a life in novels; gifted years with mother;
burnished times beside me, but his luck failed.
He died surrounded by books, coolly shaded
by pink thunderheads swelling over Oronoco,
his reed funeral skiff saluted by face painted
drummers and puma skinned villagers playing
grandiloquent flutes awarded the Palme d'Or.