(Dr. Robert James Berry is a professor in the Department of Languages & Communication at Universiti Putra , Malaysia . You can email him at robert_james_berry@yahoo.com)

Cold islands entice me,
like carved stone cathedrals.
Their single mountains are the
exalted white saviors of our continent.
Fallen devils in winter.

Go South, where long archipelagoes
Follow the land’s evolution,
Isles like shed,
splintered tails in the sea,
giant’s vertebrae planted for war.

This is a horizon smudged
by storm and salt.

The furnace of tropical islands
evokes other memories.
Wild orchids swaying slowly.
Heavy, fragrant, ocean-scented fruit.

Taut sails in emerald twilight.
The purge and bloodbath of sunset.

Yet the old whale tooth amulet,
and the bright scarlet flower
of the flame tree
Are essentially one.

Only latitudes change.

Looked for on the horizon,
Islands lodge in sleep, conceive myths,
Are emeralds
in all the world’s languages.