as a child
every sunday after church
when we went to the beach
i took shelter from the sun
under one of the many sea-grapes
that lined the shore
marveled at their hard almond-shaped seed
the flesh of which was never salty
i had to hunt for a heavy stone
to break the nut free
some of the branches
were low enough
for me to swing my legs over
hang upside down and try
to catch my shadow
my mother sometimes
gathered the nuts in a bag
an amateur oenologist
she had long been at the practice
of making wines from local fruits
inviting the men in the community
over to sample her various concoctions
she would have been a vintner in another
time and place but this was jamaica
after all and she was woman
black and ambitious and accepted
no boundaries to her imagination
which she gifted me
i remember learning
that seagrape was dioecious
pondered how
the male and female
got together to mate
and who collected the sap
we used in Jamaica
for dyeing and tanning leather
sea-grape or cocolloba
the latter name always made
me giggle falling to the ground
like the brown leaves
that it sheds abundantly
covering the terrain
in this fall that is summer
here in st croix
Opal Palmer Adisa 